1. James Stafford

2. Question: Can an animation encourage people to produce efficient media?
Plan: I have been studying animation for a number of years in my spare time
in order to improve my techniques as a skilled animator. When extended
project came along I took it as a n opportunity to put forward my skill and
show people what I am capable of as I wish for people to understand what
qualifications I have. Whilst coming up with an idea for an animation I looked
into other pieces of work produced by animators alike, from feature films to
YouTube shorts in order to try and see what hasn’t been done so that I could
try and produce sufficient work that stood out.

3. Research
Wallace and Gromit: Wallace and Gromit is a short series which looks at the adventure
of Wallace, a middle aged inventor and his dog Gromit, featuring around four thirty
minute episodes as well as a full length feature film produced by Aardman studios and
director Nick park who is also best known for creating Chicken run and Creature
comforts. They’re work has become excessively popular amongst viewers despite there
being only four episodes.
Due to the success that Wallace and Gromit had a number of other related products
were produced including the CBBC show “Shaun the sheep” an animated children’s
television program which focuses mainly on one of the characters seen in the original
short “A close shave” and “Timmy time” an animated preschool children’s program and
is broadcasted on CBeebies.
My animations have had much inspiration from Wallace and Gromit as they were what
gave me the motivation to work my way through my animations the make the videos
such as the one I am working on now.

4. Nightmare before Christmas: Nightmare before Christmas is a feature length film
produced by Tim Burton and features the story of Jack Skellington, a skeleton who is an
icon in the ton he lives in, which celebrate Halloween on a regular basis. But he grows
tired of the same holiday happening over and over and chooses to leave whereby he
discovers Christmas town, a town that celebrates Christmas on a regular basis and so
out of curiosity and excitement chooses to celebrate Christmas also along with the rest
of his home town.
The film itself is often shown on Disney related TV channels, particularly around
October and Halloween as this holiday as an intense relationship with the film ever
since its release.
The nightmare before Christmas was one of the biggest inspirations for me as I enjoyed
both the style that it was animated in along with the art design of the characters and
locations that were seen.Although this video I am working on for extended project will
not be done in the style of Tim Burton’s work I will be following the techniques that he
has used when animating his videos.

5. Bboy Joker:Bboy Joker is a short interactive animation presented on YouTube and
feature a street dance, dance off between the Joker and Batman. The purpose of the
animation is that people must choose a character to play as before having to copy and
remember a series of moves preformed by the other opponent.
If they manages to follow the correct sequence of dance moves then their chosen
character performs even more impressive dance stunts however if they fail to perform
the same moves their character is shown standing in discomfort and defeat and are
given the option to try again. This video was presented only on YouTube as it seemed to
be the only program which is capable of allowing this video to have such an interactive
style.
The main reason I have chosen to look into this is because alongside his work he has
produced a video demonstrating how he has presented and made his work, which is
what I intend on doing with my work.

6. Animation idea origins
At first I was struggling to come up with a suitable
idea for a stop motion animation as I had already
exhausted most other possible ideas. Whilst
researching one night I came across a series of
pictures such as the ones shown on the right here
which gave me the idea of producing a chase
through the city at night involving Sonic. Since I
had a sonic puppet at the time also I thought that
this idea would be very possible. What I really liked
about the pictures that gave me inspiration was the
idea for the environment which they were set in, it
suited the characters I had in mind as well as put
them in a situation that could bring them together.
Although I hadn’t animated with puppets such as
this much before I thought it would be rather good
experience and would help me to improve my skills
as a stop motion movie maker.

7. plot line
I have decided to work on producing a short stop motion film which involves a breath
taking chase with Sonic the hedgehog as he attempt to escape from two mysterious
pursuers to plan on capturing him. The animation will consist of a number of different
animation and camera techniques that will help to add to the over all look of the product as
it’ll make the journey that these characters face much more exciting. As well as the
animation I will also be including a video demonstrating to people how I went about
producing the animation, the effects, the sets and the characters in order to help make
viewers understand properly how it was produced. As well as this I will also be submitting
test animations of the character to show that I have experimented with the characters
before hand to show how I go about animating various characters of different shape and
sizes.
The idea for this product was inspired by many other animations that I have watched in the
past and one animation in particular titled “Black Ox skateboard” which is a short stop-
motion video made by Patrick boivin and shows us a small puppet producing skateboard
stunts. The idea seems very simple and basic but it’s the way which I will be presenting it
which I hope will capture peoples attention as I will be applying a selection of affects such
as lighting techniques, green screen and scenery in order to make the product seem more
professional and realistic looking.

8. Characters involved
Sonic the Hedgehog: Sonic is the main protagonist of the animation, he is pursued
throughout the entire short movie. The main reason I chose to include him in my animation
is because he is recognizable and therefore people will immediately know who the character
is without having to worry about introductions to the characters.
Barricade the police car: Barricade is the main antagonist of the animation as he is the one
who pursues Sonic throughout the entire short movie. I chose to include this character in
the animation because he is an interesting character to both watch as well as animate and
therefore I think will contribute rather well to the over all result of the product. Also his
character suites the style of the animation as well as looks like a suitable antagonist.
Mixmaster the cement truck: Mixmaster is a transformer who can change into a cement
mixer. I chose to use this character in my animation partly because he is one of my favourite
puppets to animate but mainly because like Barricade, animating transformers adds quite an
effect to the animation.

9. Storyboard

10. Storyboard part 2

11. Final product

12. Software used
Windows movie maker: Windows movie maker was only utilized to allow for me to upload
the footage that I have collected. Once the footage I made was on the software I only
applied a few effects primarily to tidy up the footage, including speeding up the footage so
that it runs more smoothly, brightening the green of the green screen for chroma keying
and placing the shots in correct order so that I would know what footage should go where
in the final product.
MAGIX: Magix was the main software that I used throughout the entire editing process.
When the footage was imported I firstly started by doing the chroma keying process which
took up much of the editing time as all of the shots were done on green screen.
Afterwards I then had to produce backgrounds so that the characters all looked as though
they were moving through a city environment. This proved fairly difficult because if the
puppets are shiny then they reflect the green which makes them turn green as well and
therefore partly disappear when the backgrounds are applied. I also used this program to
adjust the lighting, contrast and saturation of the characters so that they fit the
atmosphere of the video more.
After effects: After effects was purely to add some effects that were only used in minor
scenes such as the opening credits and closing credits. I would occasionally use it to
create certain backgrounds but a lot of the time I used backgrounds from certain media
websites and just edited them so they all blend together.

13. Final evaluation of
project
Whilst working on the project many ideas that I had originally planned to include were taken out of
the final product partly due to time purposes but mainly because otherwise it would mean too much
work for such a product. Originally I planned to have built a series a models of a city landscape for me
to work with in order to make the product more easy for me to work on but due to how pressed for
time I was, I was unable to make them in time and had to resort to animating in front of green screen
which posed another problem. One of the main characters was yellow which when put in front of
green screen is keyed out meaning that the character disappears along with the green background. I
originally planned therefore to animate this character along in front of blue screen instead but this
would mean having to set up a new studio for this puppet as well as having to blend it in with the rest
of the clips. After re-planning the story I chose to cut this character from the final product. As well as
this I chose not to animate Mixmaster as well as this would also mean more time would be needed to
produce the footage necessary. I still included the character in my work but rather than animating
him walking, running, jumping and interacting with the characters and surroundings I chose to have
him in his vehicle form just driving around in pursuit of Sonic. Upon completing my first draft I was
shocked to find that the audio didn’t work and as well as this, much of the footage didn’t turn out as
well as I had hoped with many of the scenes either not working or haven't been cut properly sue to
the program I was using to edit the footage lagging due to how much data I had included in my work.
The campaign of my product is to inspire and encourage younger viewers to work with media and to
help motivate such viewers to attempt producing similar work as to what I have done. I enjoy my
work and all I wish to do is convince others that my work can be enjoyed by other as well. Though I
am proud of my work if I was given the option to produce it again the one thing I would definitely
consider would be to give myself a lot more time as a product such as this can only be produced to
such high standard if I have plenty of time to work on it.