External Brief

Staffordshire Dog was a small project based on the ceramic industry surrounding Stoke on Trent and The Potteries. The project was simple – incorporate a ceramic design from one of the many ceramic factories in the area with a dog, or using the famous “Staffordshire Dog” (ornament). I collaborated with Tracy for this, I edited and animated whilst Tracy made the puppets. This took 10 hours in total.

Staffordshire Dog: https://vimeo.com/119061396

I put an idea forward for the Home Front poetry commission - The Lost Brave. My idea was to use pastel chalks in a very abstract way to depict certain images and words; although my final idea wasn’t chosen, the animatic I had made for the presentation took around 4 -5 hours to draw and edit.

For Stoke Your Fires I edited one of two showreels and also volunteered for the event. The showreel was edited over two days. The total hours for Stoke Your Fires would have been around 20.

Full Secs: Animade. I have animated two Full Secs entries; “I’ve taken a Viking to you” and “A Cup of Tea”. Both of these were relatively easy to animate and edit. They took less than 10 hours each. 

Cup of Tea: https://vimeo.com/124929060

Viking: https://vimeo.com/128538692

For the last part of my external brief I participated in Crazy Horse – 48 hour jam. Before flying to Germany, I made the basic structure of the carousel so it could be erected on the day of the competition. 

The preparation time prior to the competition is hard to say, as Travis and I met many times to discuss it. Although I would say it would have been between 20 -30 hours. 

The picture below shows the layout and measurements we went for. There were 6 pieces of K&S tubing which we used to mount the horses on

Travis designed and constructed the walk cycles. Each cycle consisted of 12 horses - sticking to an even number made things a lot easier to animate.

The room we were provided with did not suit our specific needs as stop motion animators. The competition is mainly aimed at computer 2D or 3D animators; so this was a slight problem from the start. We requested to be moved into a darker room – our request was granted and we worked in the buildings cinema room for most of the duration of the competition.

Sadly this was the only photo I took of the workspace we had, it didn't even cross my mind to take many photos whilst animating!

Although the room we were given was a good location for animating, the lighting was terrible. The lights I had bought with me for animating were also too yellow. We also had problems with the software. I had downloaded a trial of Dragon Frame - which unknowingly the logo is imprinted on each frame. It also limited us to only 50 frames a shot. This wasn’t ideal, so we made the choice to “shoot blind”.

The final result was a little jittery, but for the facilities we had I feel that we made it the best we could. In hindsight there is a lot I would change about the process, but it was a great experience. The competition itself lasted 48 hours, making up the remainder of my external brief hours. 

Crazy Horse: https://vimeo.com/128542331