Tree development

While in the mouldmaking workshop, I asked Martin how he would go about making trees with bendable branches. He suggested I make it with just wire and latex. I need to get a handful of wire, bend it all together, then twist of individual branches. Then paint it with coloured latex.
So I had a go at this:

Gardening wire from B&Q. Very bendable and cheap in bulk.

Cut of the right amount.

Cut out individual wires.

Twisted them all together.

Made a base and hot glued the wire in place.

Twisted out the branches.

Painted one coat of latex.

Added a second layer of latex to make a thicker colour.

I am really pleased with how this tree worked out. It was so much better than the one I made with plasticine. The branches are bendable, but work best when there is only one strand of wire instead of two or three twisted together, so when I make the trees for the set I just have to remember to make the ends of the branches with one strand. 

Semester 2 Schedule

Semester two started a couple of weeks ago, and I'll need to start filming soon. I haven't finished making the sets and models yet so I started to worry that I was behind schedule.

So I made a more detailed schedule for this semester.

It might be difficult to see, but its broken down into weeks. And I have broken the filming down into the different scenes. I have given myself the rest of this month to make everything, and six weeks overall for filming. That leaves me with a few of weeks to composite and edit everything.

I have also been keeping on top of the budget, but as I am still buying things, I do not have a completed one just yet.

Update on the Modelmaking

I have been working on the model lately, I'm still waiting on the mould making workshop at the end of this week, but I can still get on with the bodywork.

So I've completed the next stage, adding the foam:

                                                                                                                                                                                  I didn't buy the foam in the end, there was enough left over from the workshop with henry for me to use. I used a mixture of white foam (thin) and the orangy foam (medium).

During the week we had refresher workshops with Stan, and I asked him how to remove rigs, and he showed me two quite simple ways. One was using something called content-aware in Photoshop, and the other was a simple wire removal in After Effects. But afterwards I remembered a way that Henry had told us, which was to take a picture of the background before filming with the rig, then have the background as another layer behind the video and simple erase the rig.

So I realised that I could create some of the complicated shots using a rig. The only problem was that  I covered up the rigging point in the armature, thinking I wouldn't need it. So I had to drill to find it.

                                                 

But I managed to just about get to it, and I had some of the dowel left to use as a rig for now, the only problem is its a little short, so I might need to get a longer one. 

Shotlist

I created a shotlist using Open Office Calc. Using the animatic and storyboards, I broke down each shot  to help organise the film. It will give me a better understanding of all the shots that need to be filmed. I can tick each shot off once they are filmed, and again when they have been composited.

The first column shows the scene, there are four scenes in my film:
The bedroom scene
The happy world
The scary world
The bedroom scene again with shadows

I also included the set that will be needed for each shot, which characters will be needed, the difficulty and the rough length.
The length is rough because I was working it out using the animatic, I rounded the length to the nearest second.
The difficulty is based on how much work is needed to create that shot. The bedroom scenes are all fairly easy, which is why they are green. There is only one character, one set, which has been constructed. The fantasy world scenes are all amber, for medium, as they require the green screen, and sometimes the giant feet. There are only two shots that I have marked as difficult (red). They are the over-head shot, which I haven't figured out exactly yet, but I am guessing it will be quite difficult. Also the longest shot in the film, at 17s, where the girl is running from the giant feet. In the animatic the camera moves with the girl, so I don't know how I would do this in stop motion.

I am glad I have made this shotlist, it really helped me to clear my head and see it all laid out.