The Pirates! A band of Misfits

The Pirates! A band of Misfits is a stopmotion animation produced by Aardman and partnered with Sony Animations. This film was directed by Peter Lord. it is a very lovable film  based on the book Pirates! An adventure with scientists, this was what the film was originally called it then changed at a later date. The film is about a bunch of unsuccessful pirates, who raid a ship that a scientist is aboard. The scientist notices that the Pirate Captain parrot is actually a Dodo, the scientist see his chance to become famous with the endangered bird. It is full of adventure and excitement. The animation is fluent and colourful, perfect for grabbing children's attention. I would recommend this to anyone as it is quite humorous and I believe adults will enjoy it too. This film was nominated for the 2013 Academy Award for Best Animation Feature and has received positive views from critics.

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Armatures

Armatures are like little robots that you create when make stop motion animation. They are used in claymation, puppet animation and many more. The armature is like the skeleton of your body, it helps the model to be manipulated and be sturdy at the same time. Armatures are created using aluminium wires and magnets, they can be made using other things but that's what I use along with miliput to create muscles. In CG they have a similar thing but obviously it is computer generated, in Maya the have something that is called a skeleton rig which is pretty much the same thing as an armature it is just a computer generated version.

Maya Rig

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Creature Comforts

Creature Comforts is a children's show that features different animal characters expressing their feelings about zoo life. It is created by Aardman animations and Nick park, it originally started off as a short film that soon became a series broadcast-ed on ITV. It is made using claymation, which is what Aardman specialise in. This show is highly hilarious, witty and stylish. It certainly gives you an incite as to what animals may be thinking. This show was so successful that they created an American version so all the world could see it. If you love British humour then I suggest you watch this.

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James and The Giant Peach

James and the Giant Peach is one of my favourite childhood animated films. This film was directed by the world famous Henry Selick and produced by Tim Burton and Denise De Nova. It is beautifully animated using stop motion animation with the combination of live action. This film includes very catchy music with songs composed by Jeff Bennett, Paul Terry, Susan Sarandon, Jane Leeves and many more. this film definately tributes to the Roald Dahl's children's book of the same name. This movie isn't like all the other Disney films, most Disney films represent a princess as a damsel in distress awaiting a hero to come save them but this film represents a little boy having the courage to save himself. Selick has been faithful to keep to the original story line of Dahl's book. This film really presents Selicks admiration for stop motion animation, it also shows Selick's art style. This film is full of excitement and magic.

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Mary and Max

Mary and Max is one of my favourite stop motion animation films, based on a true story. It doesn't just keep to the same principles of animation for children. This animation is about real life situations, relating to depression, suicide and loneliness. It is quite a dark animation and most people don't think it is appropriate for children, but that's just it,  it is not for children it is an animation made for adults. I believe that this works incredibly well as it gets to the audience more with it being cartoon characters going through these problems that we face every day. The colour in the animation is set out to give off the atmosphere of depression, with it being a more washed out colour tone with only hints of bright colours. The story is about two pen pal friends one is a little girl who is lonely and doesn't have any friends, her mother is an alcoholic who doesn't really pay much attention to her. The person on the other end of the letters is a fully grown man who is also dealing with loneliness, obesity and depression. He rarely leaves the house, and doesn't have much money to go anywhere. The two pen pals grow up writing to each other, talking about what they are feeling and what they are going through. The stop motion animation is fluent and beautiful. It is so intricate, you can see all the tiny movements with in the plasticine.

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Youtube as a teaching method

Youtube is a well known video sharing website. It is used for music videos, trailers and many other things. Just search for it and you will find what you want. Some celebrities now a days started off with posting videos of their talent on Youtube. It was first created by three formal Paypal employees in February 2005. It has been owned by Google since 2006. I find that Youtube is very useful as I have found many instructional videos on how to 3D model or how to create stop motions ect. I have even posted an instructional video on how I created a my response to a module. So Youtube is a teaching method, it is where you can find many instructional videos in response to what you are learning. I use it often for modules and for personal use.

Here is an instructional video that has been posted on Youtube.

There are many videos like this, that give you tips and advice for what you are wanting to do.

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King Kong

king Kong was first originally brought to the screens in 1933, it is a fantastic fantasy film. The special effects for its' time was astounding. They were created using the stop motion method, Kong is renowned for it's stop motion animation which were created by Willis O'Brien. King Kong is often seen as one of the most iconic movies of all time. The original film has been colourised and released on DVD and Blue Ray. This film has been remade twice one in 1976, for this remake the special effects were created by Carlo Rambaldi. This film was deemed one of the highest grossing income of 1976.This film is the only one of the King Kong films that didn't feature The Empire State Building but rather the World Trade Center in its place. The other remake was created in 2005, this one Kong is fully special effects. Jackson didn't want Kong to have any human like features so he went to study gorillas in the wild. This film is one of the most highest grossing films in history. I feel that all three films are amazing but the first one is always going to seem better than the remakes due to it being the first and the special effects being futuristic for its time.

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Jason and The Argonauts

Jason and the Argonauts is a well known film, it is created using stop motion animation with live action. The stop motion animation is created by the amazing Ray Harryhausen. The film is well noted for the stop motion, particularly for the famous skeleton scene. This is a story of the quest for the golden fleece. Watching this film as a child made me want to research deeper into how the amazing creatures were created. Once I found out that they were models and you used them like puppets in order to create the movements, it got me more enticed to learn about it. The creatures have inspired many characters such as Spinal from Killer Instinct and Pirates of the Caribbean skeleton pirates. There are other monsters that Ray Harryhausen that have inspired films makers such as Kraken and cyclops these have featured in loads of movies and games. Jason and the Argonauts was an amazing film for its time period for its special effects and the beautiful colour.

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What happened over the summer

Over the summer I created name plates and invitations mainly to get used to using photoshop a lot more. I also got to look at new features in photoshop. I found that the clone tool was very useful. I am now a lot more comfortable in using photoshop for any concept art or in creating drawings.
These are what I created.

Laika Studios

Laika studio is a world famous studio well known for movies such as Coraline, Paranorman and Moon girl a CG short. Laika doesn't just work on films but are also known for advertisements. You can search for the advertisements by going to Laika House. They have created advertisements for Ben and Jerry's ice cream, Coca-Cola, Samsung, ESPN, Nintendo and more. Laika mainly create animations using the stop motion method. They have also made some commercials using CG and 2D. It seems that they don't just stick to one type of animation it looks as though they are interested in all types of animations. However I do believe they have been most successful in the stop motion division as the feature length films are very successful. Laika studios is one of my favourite studios as they do the type of animation that I want to do, I also like the Gothic nature of the feature lengths.  Laika really present there own style with in the movies for instance the long thin arms are frequent to the different characters also the dark nature and rustic colour style in featured in the movies. I have to be honest I didn't know Laika studios also created commercials, I assumed they only worked on films. It's the feature length (Coraline) that really got the studios noticed, well by me. Laika studios is the main place that I want to aim to be working at in the future. It would be a dream come true to work on stop motion animations at Laika. Laika are now on the verge of releasing a new feature length film 'The Boxtrolls'. This film looks very promising and I can not wait to view it.

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Robocop

Robocop is a classic science fiction film that pretty much any body would have seen, I would be surprised if someone hadn't. The original film came to the screens in 1987. The inspiration for Robocop came form another classic science fiction film Blade Runner. RoboCop went onto inspire Judge Dredd the comic book series, the film was a winner to the audience. The visual effects was created by stop motion animation, the models were designed by Craig Davies and then they were animated by Phil Tippett. Chiodo Brothers production created and animated the dinosaur puppet in the 6000 Sux advertisement.

RoboCop has been remade and updated, I hadn't really thought much of what the remake would be like, if am honest I didn't think it would be good as I am one for the original classics. However I was pleasantly surprised with the reboot as it wasn't just a remake of the original, it also had a different story (not completely different though). It's the slight changes that I liked very much. They certainly improved from the original. They made the film appeal to the audience of now a days. Although the film it self has received mixed reviews, in my opinion people who have seen the original and have grown up with it shouldn't be used to measure the quality of the film as it clouds the judgement and compare the film to the original rather than judging it on a stand alone film.  There are parts of the film that relate back to the original that adds as a little bonus for the film. The visual effects have been updated for this generation which are an improvement to the original as it seems more realistic and appeals to the teen generation. Personally, both movies have there merits and downfalls but overall they are exceptional films.

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Adam Elliot

Adam Elliot is an independent Stop motion animator, he has helped create movies such as Mary and Max, Harvey Krumpet, Brother, Uncle, Cinema 16: World Shorts Film and Cousin. As you already know I am a big fan of Mary and Max as the animation in this is so fluent and smooth for a claymation. Elliot is a very successful short film maker and feature film maker in Australia. He is based in Melbourne. Elliot tackles real life problems with in his animations, they aren't made to be pretty but more to tell the story and most of the stories are quite sad and depressing. He uses the old style of film like black and white imagery probably to help the audience feel the emotions he wants to feel.

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Laika Tiny Pirates challenge

I found that Laika house put up a competition to create what ever you want whilst sticky to the tiny pirates theme. I chose to create a plasticine model with an armature inside to create various positions, I did want to make a tiny video showing his movements but I ran out of time to do this. I started by drawing up different designs to create a look to go from. My main inspirations came from Spinal from Killer Instinct game series, and the skeleton pirates from The Pirates of the Caribbean. I liked the idea that he wasn't a normal man anymore due to a curse so I wanted to go with the idea that he was trapped in his decomposing body. This is the progression starting from concept art to the finished model.

Here is the email that I sent to Laika house, I included a short story about my character and how he became the way he is.