Just adding the most recent photos of the animation short project

 

 

 

I've decided to create a foreground setting as a lot of the movement had to be filmed in front of a green screen. I hope to mirror this section of the set in Photoshop to give me a wide-angle set. I have noticed that a lot of my set images have a sort of pink hue. I had noticed that in an earlier image, that included some red clay, how the red ended up being more pink on film. I hope this can be altered when editing.

 

For the tree in my second scene I found a suitable branch on a tree in the garden - thank god I don't live in an apartment. I attached two pieces of metal to the base to stand it on the aeroboard

 

I then had to make a mesh of some sort to secure the moss onto. In the end I got a ball of tangled wire and flattened it out. I then taped this to the branch and covered it with moss. After spreading some sand over the exposed metal it looked fairly good.

 

I discovered at this point that the lion was a bit too big to fit under the buffalo - for the buttocks scratching shot.

 

The buffalo won't stand without the wooden base so it will have to be removed from every shot. There is a scene where the lion scampers out from underneath the buffalo which I thought I'd have to cut but I've managed to shoot it since (sort of)

 

This is the camera angle for when Leroy talks to the buffalo

 

I had to shoot more footage of the buffalo as I changed some of the dialogue

 

I had to make a replica of the buffalo's head for some of the 'camera trickery' I'll be using. I wrapped it in clingfilm to prevent contamination between the colours. The reason it's blue is partly because I want to key it out later and also because I only had blue clay left.

 

I finally got a sunny day to get some pictures of long grass that I'm going to use for the mid-ground of the landscape shots.

 

The 12" ruler indicates the scale of the figures and the sets

 

Filming of more than one character gets slowed down because each figure has to be moved a touch for each shot.

 

Wear and tear on the characters becomes more evident the more they get moved

 

Sections of 2" aerobord were used as the base for the set

 

I sharpened some pencils at each end to join the sections of aeroboard together

 

The biggest bag of grass I ever saw

 

The procedure I used to fix grass to the aerobord

 

I fixed several bundles of grass at each side of the set to begin with

 

I taped over the joints before adding sand as a covering

 

I had considered just scattering sand over the surface but was having a problem with the masking tape over the joints coming loose and any sand getting underneath this would add to the problem

 

I then experimented with using PVA glue first on a small section. The glue also helped to stick the tape more securely

 

Although the joints are still obvious I will be shooting from a low angle and in the shots they aren't noticable

 

I decided to shoot the third scene before the second as I could adapt the existing set without dismantling it. this meant making the cubs. originally I was going to have eight but they were taking a lot more time than I'd expected to make, so I cut the number to six. I kept the armatures simpler as well as their legs would be shorter and I was counting on the thickness of clay on their legs to support them.

 

I cut grooves in bottle corks to take the armatures

 

The wire joints were glued as they were a bit loose

 

A layer of PVA glue over the surface of the aerobord worked well to secure the sand covering

 

The leg joints of the lions became so loose that the lions wouldn't stand up and had to be rebuilt using screws through eyelets added to the rawl plugs with glue

 

It took over a day to replace all the leg joints which was time I didn't really have to spare.

 

It took over two days to repair the lions and make the cubs, which was time I had scheduled for filming. I had planned to do all the filming over the Easter holidays and edit everything when I have all the footage

 

The characters in position for the opening shot of the third scene

 

With the bits of buffalo added

 

For some reason the red clay ends up pink on film. I'm hoping to darken this in after effects

 

I'm using this set again for scene one when the grass thins and we see the cubs playing in the clearing

 

I added some rocks and crumpled paper to build up the background

 

 

I'm also using part of this set for the opening shots of scene two. In fact by changing parts of it I think it should do for all the scenes