1.2.2021 (edited)

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 Pixilation Project

Technique and Ideation


For my first project of this semester I have to create a pixilation film with theme of 'the day in the life...' , the film needs to be at least 15 to 30 seconds long and have sound but what is pixilation? Pixilation is a subsect of stop motion in which real people are incorporated into the the film which allows for people in interact with the surrounding environment in ways that aren't feasible in real life. Though it was rarely used and even when it was it most likely used a form of special effects.

The style of animation began to gain traction around 1950's with Norman McLaren's anti-war film 'Neighbours' (1952) Norman McLaren had a very experimental method of making films which sound played an important role, this is no different has there is no dialogue throughout the duration of the short meaning that a lot of the emotions of the characters are conveyed through and combination of motion, expression and music. The music itself interested me somewhat as it is very joyful synthetic sound and synths were still quite new at the time. 

I admit I thought at first this film was made in the 70's because it reminded me so much of the weird sounds Moog machines had, though in my defence I am not very knowledgeable on synthesizers.

Pixilation as a medium is now used a lot in advertising and music videos as well as creators such as PES who make short stop motion animations including pixilation. With a few of my personal favourites including the music video for Peter Gabriel's Sledgehammer, the music video for Delta Heavy's Get By  and Fresh Guacamole by PES. 

Below is an example of pixilation used in adverting.  

Expedia-Let's Take a Trip (2020)


Ideation and thumbnails-

Quick thumbnails based on various ideas I had.


Out of all my idea five stuck out which I made place holder title for to get across an idea and tone for the film. A some were a reflection of how I am feeling during lock down for example 'Invision of the dust bunnies' is based on all the muck I have cumulated through my own lack of motivation. In many ways I could reflect how I've been putting off things till they're too much to handle. While 'gross hands' is a more an obvious example showing the spread on germs on common day objects such as phones and door handles.
A lot of these ideas where cut due to practicality issues
In 'invasion of the dust bunnies' was gonna use real dust bunnies but as you can images that would get very messy, very fast.
'The body a canvas' would've have been fun but I didn't really have any body paints or any type of pen that would wipe of easy.
And finally 'March of the Knick Knacks' and 'How to build a friend' had the same general story in my mind, this was before I made rough story outlines, that they were merged into the same thing before they were even fully developed.

These are thumbnails that were the beings of a storyline. You could say are are storyboards but I didn't really have an idea on what I wanted to do at this point.


I made 'Gross Hands' or what I somehow called in my notes 'Dirty hands' was to be a plan B in case anything goes wrong with getting supplies or during filming and I need to make something fast. 
We've all been there, don't lie.


I knew I wanted to make my character humanoid since they're supposed to be a stand in for a human companionship. I did ask my friends on discord on what a friend should look like and immediately got a picture of Kirby. 

The think my friend said it best-


I also considered having other characters or "failed attempts" so to speak but it might be hard to animated multiple characters if it just me doing most of the work. I do live with family but it's not best to drag others into your work without asking.

Test videos and notes 

I did some tests with a stop motion app on my phone to get an idea on what I'll be working with and these are advice I got back.

apple test-

  •  Camera should be pulled back more.
  • Apple could maybe move his eye or blink at the end to give them a little bit more life.
clown test- 


Similar advice to the previous test

puzzle test-

  • Try instead by having the pieces move on their own to make it seem more magical.


I think will in corporate some of these ideas into my final project, such as having my character blink before getting up so show signs of life and have some of the arts and crafts pieces move on their own rather my it just being my hands putting everything together.

The plan

I think for this project I am not gonna put too much work into my storyboards since this will be a solo job and should be done in around a week or less. I'll probably just make my story outline on some A4 pieces of paper.

I am going to film each scene separately and then edit them in all together in Adobe Premier or After effects, though if I do use Premier I'll be using a lot of YouTube tutorials. Doing his way will allow be to set up the tripod for each scene as well as not having to worry about redoing everything if I scene goes wrong somehow.


Sources

texts-


Videos-
Playlists-




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