Making of The Piper part 3

Animation:

With the puppets and set completed it was time to get animating on the film. Due to story points I had to shoot a dream sequence and one of the last shots for the film first, it had to be done this way as I needed the park set to be fully clean. Once all the shots were completed I had to take a week out of animating and messy the park up, add a fence and trees. In planning my animation time sheet I had to shoot the story in chunks all facing the same camera angels. This was important to get right as the sun is setting toughout film and I was painting the background by hand as I went on.

The first two weeks of animating were with all that kids paying on the equipment in the park. These were all shot of two's at 25 fps as i wanted the kids animation to have a more classic children's tv show vibe. However the Piper himself was animated on ones this was to give him more fluid movements and allow him to play his pipe in sync, it also helps to sell the fact that The Piper is not from this world and gives him a very different feel. Here is a slide show that shows the animation process and the order I shot the film in.  

 

Editing:
Editing on The Piper was the first time i really used After effects to its full advantage, as i haven't had much experience with After Effects i asked my may friend Frank Mansfield for some advice. There were 6 main shots where I used After Effects for: rig removal, light tracking, colour correction and green screen removal.

 I edited the film as I went along, animating in the day and adding in the new shots on the night. The dead line on completing this Film was the tightest it has been for me. on the day before hand in I finished animating the final shot with the Piper and all 7 kids at 5pm and was up editing in the final shots, making the final touches, fully syncing up the music and adding in the sounds fx till 7am of the day of Hand in. I uploaded the film on to Vimeo, did the last part of the right up and handed in all my work. 

Reactions:
I had The Piper online viewable to the public for 2 days after it was completed, and in that time that feedback has been amazing! I sent the link to a large number of animation friends and here are some of their brilliant comments.

I'd like to take this opportunity to say a massive thank you to everyone who has watched The Piper and commented on it as means a lot! To the ones who have no seen The Piper yet it will be back online once the festival runs are over.

The Making of The Piper Part 2

Hi guys welcome back to the making of my final graduation film The Piper. In my last post I gave you a insight into the per production work and in this post I will cover the making of the Puppets, set, props, and animation.

 Making The Piper Puppet:
 This slideshow shows how I made the Piper puppet form my first designs to the final character on  set. The armature is from animationtoolkit.co.uk and was cover in foam to pad out the body shape. The sculpted clay head was set into a silicone mould and casted up using a fast setting resin. The suite was hand stitched by my self working from a pattern that was kindly given to me. The hands are made form silicone and hair is made out of a fur fabric that was coloured in using a number of different sharpies.

 Making The Kids puppets:
 This slideshow shows how the all 7 kid puppets were made. I had 3 Ball and socket armatures and 4 wire armature that were from animationtoolkit.co.uk. The armatures were covered in foam to give etch kids a different body shape. To save time all the kids had the same head, this was sculpted in clay, set into a silicone mould and casted up 8 times using a fast setting resin. All the kids costumes were made the amazing first year student Cat Hayes, check out her work hear!. The hands are made form silicone. The hair was made by my self and to second year students RobMillard and Giselle Schiniou (click names to see there work) layering up meany hair extensions over a foam core. Once fully dry I would cut it into the desired shape.

 Making The Park Set:
 This slideshow shows the construction of the park set. I started off by covering the Animation table with a big black sheet that I stuck down with PVA glue. Once dry I glued down sawdust in to the shape of the pathway rolling over it till flat. I did the same technique for the chip wood in the main play ground but instead of saw dust I used torn up chunks of cardboard. To make the sky / backdrop i got a 1 meter by 2 meter size strip of blue fabric. I painted on the clouds with poster paint as it seeps into the fabric, I would paint this sky more orange tough out the film to so show that the sun is setting. The chip wood and sawdust were painted with a mix or poster a acrylic paints.

I made all of the play ground equipment my self with scraps pieces of wood, wire and foam board, a part from the seesaw witch I got my good friend Zeke Ares to make, check out his work here! I made the play ground clean first then once all the shots were completed I messed up the play ground. To messy up and to make play ground feel more like a cage for the kids I added a fence all around the park, i also added trees all along the back and sides of the park. this helped me get some every interesting depth and lighting on set. The tree were made out of poster tubes sprayed in glue, rolled in saw dust, painted up and glued to the set.

Thanks for reading guys and as always your comments, questions and feedback are very welcome! Coming soon the making of The Piper part 3.