Weekly Journal

Regular evaluation updates are required with every unit. Please remember to
take photos and get behind the scenes footage as you film. You might find it
easier if you note down a record of what you did each day in a diary form.

Please use the following guidance to help you with each week.

Week 1 This week you researched stop motion animation

What research have you We researched about what stop motion is and who
completed this week and what the pioneers. I then researched award winning
have you learned? animations and what made them unique. For
example, spider man in the spider verse, this is a 2018
animation, so fairly recent and is possibly one of the
most influential animations of time. The overall
animation is so fluid and smooth.
What materials did you consider My materials I considered
using and why? • Post-its
• Figures
• And humans
I considered post-it’s because I thought they were an
original idea however I realised that they wouldn’t
work with the style of animation I wanted. Rather than
having a factual animation I decided I wanted it to
be more of a narrative.
Hence why the other two picked were figures and
using actors. I felt like either of these two options
would give me a wider scale to work with, leaving a
lot of flexibility around what I felt was right and what I
felt like didn’t work in the end. I chose not to do
Figures for a few reasons. I personally don’t own any
Lego and any figure I do own are a lot bigger and
harder to work with, to make the animation smoother
it would be easier to work with something like Lego
men rather than pop vinyl’s (which was all I had) so I
chose to use humans (actors) for the final animation.
This was primarily because I have easy access to
getting somebody to use for this project. I also think
that it’s easier to get a human to do exactly what you
want as you can describe how you want things to
look and they can actually use their initiative and put
these actions into place.
How did the test animations help The test animations really helped me to pick the most
you to choose the most suitable suitable material because to start I really wanted to
material for your animation? use post-it notes as I really liked the idea and thought
it was unique, however once testing out a short
(provide screenshots that show
animation I realised that not only are they very
your practice methods) temperamental and kept falling off of the wall, they
also just didn’t fit the vibe I wanted to go with for my
animation. And for a short couple of seconds of
animation it took me so long due to the post-it’s falling
off the wall, trying to put them back in the exact
same position. Figures as well proved to be very
temperamental as they kept falling over as they are
top heavy. If I was using them for the final project I
realised I would have had to blue tack them to the
set. These problems helped me to go with using actors
in the end because when practicing with my friends, it
was more enjoyable and I genuinely liked the final
outcome much better. I felt it was right for what I
wanted my “homelessness” animation to be like.
What did you learn from your I think my planning helped a lot to progress my idea, if I
planning? How has it helped you didn't plan out all of my frame work and the scenes, I think
to progress your idea? that next week when I record these it will feel much more
rushed and manic. At least if i plan thi sall out good
enough, theres not much that can go wrong next week.
Are you on track for this week? If Im on track
not, how far behind are you?
What work do you need to There is none
complete outside of lessons to
stay on track?

Week 2 This week you produced your stop motion animation

How helpful did you find your Personally, I think the planning helped progress my
planning whilst photographing idea because when it came down to the day of
your animation? filming I knew exactly how many frames I had to shoot
for each scene. For example, I am working at 24fps
meaning I have to multiply that by 30 (how long the
animation is in seconds) = 720, stills I have to take. My
idea was for my animation to be based on the causes
of homelessness and to cover 10 individual causes in
these 30 seconds, this meant I have 72 still per cause
(720 divided by the 10) This meant I had to focus on
the 10 causes I felt were the most
important/impactful.
What challenges did you face Overall I think the mateial I used was the best option. In
with your chosen material? How the process of filming this animation I dont actually think i
did you overcome these? faced any challenges or issues, id say that it actually went
smoothly. The editing process however, i faced a few
challenges. The main challenge would be that 40 of my
 stills vanished and I couldnt find a way of restoring them.
To resolve this problem i added the remaining 30 to
another scene, I did this to keep the 30 as I didnt want to
waste 72 photos (a whole scene) When watching the final
animation back you can't tell that I a mmissing a chunk of
photos so I think I overcame the situation pretty well.
How did you ensure you met the I planned the frames very well before taking the pictures,
required frame rate? an example of this would be calculating the amount of
frames per scene i wanted to do.
• 24fps = 720 Pictures to take for 30 seconds of
footage.
• 720 divided by 10 = 72
• 72 pictures for each scene i want
each scene = a cause
Sticking to this plan made sure I stuck to the required
frame rate. However, when editing the animation it came
to my attention around 40 pictures under the topic "poor
menatal/physical health" were missing, im not sure where
they went but i decided to add the remaining 30 into the
scene of "debt" and added text to make up for the 30
second time limit.
How happy are you with your final If im being honest im not too happy with the final product,
product? Provide analysis of the I think the whole animation is very jumpy and not smooth
successes and failures you feel at all, I also think that its got a fast pace to it that makes it
you had hard to keep up with whats going on. I think that if the
animation had a longer time limit, around 1 minute it
might have worked better. I think that having 10 scenes in
30 seconds was ambitous and in the end didnt work as
well as i had hoped. To improve if i were to do this again, I
would have probably done around 3 scenes (causes of
homelessness) I think this would have achieved a
smoother and slower more easy pace. I am however,
happy with the overall message my animation is sending
and for this being my first time attempting animation im
pretty proud, especially with some of the scenes like the
"addiction" scene, i think that was really smooth.
How much work did you I completed the voice over and the whole filming of the
complete outside of the lessons? photos on seperate days outside of lessons.
Are you on track for this week? If i think im on track this week
not, how far behind are you?
What work do you need to None
complete outside of lessons to
stay on track?