A Grand Day In

As a lead-in to my large up and coming animation project, I decided to use a familiar character to practice my animation techniques and new camera, computer, and animation software. Each test that I complete gives me new insight into the process of animation. For five years, I animated without the use of computers (both a blessing and a curse). Now that I have been introduced to the benefits computers provide towards stop-motion, I am advancing by leaps and bounds as compared to the first years of work. "A Grand Day In" is far more involved than was "The Offended Orange" inasmuch as the set was more sophisticated, and the audio and post production were more detailed. The animation itself was far more intensive taking well over fifteen hours instead of the previous six for "Orange." Well, I hope you all enjoy my cheerful tribute to the animated character that introduced me to the art of stop-motion animation. Thanks for watching, and God bless!

Post added 8/14/10 Thank you for all of your kind comments and I'm glad to know you all enjoyed the video.

I've received a couple of questions about certain techniques and equipment I employ in my animation, so I will shed some light on this front. Firstly, I will explain that many clay animation studios use the "replacement mouth" technique to lip sync, which is the process of using several premade mouth shapes on the character and simply replacing and smoothing the mouth onto the face. Because it is generally effective and saves time, I began animation using replacement mouths, but because I use a soft clay, when taking off the mouth, I literally destroyed the mouth shape, and thus had to reconstruct the replacement each and every time. Ultimately, it was faster for me to simply resculpt the mouth each frame. I got into a pretty good and fast rythym, however.
Secondly, to those who have asked, I have used two different softwares. The first is a software that sells for around fifty dollars. However, I got mine off of e-bay for twenty. The biggest perk is that it has a very good onion-skinning feature. However, I find that the free animation internet download "Monkey Jam" is a viable substitute. While it does not have onion skinning in name, it has a nifty slider that allows you to manually compare the current frame to a previous. I find it works better that even onion-skinning. If you are interested in animation and have not tried Monkey Jam, I suggest it. (Did not work well on my Vista computer, however)
To the final question, both effort and the type of clay used play a factor into the outcome - effort more that clay. I use several types of plasticine. My favorite is Permoplast and Klean Klay. The former is softer than the latter. Each has their uses. The time devoted to your animation is a huge factor into how well your video will turn out. I have been animating on and off for over five years, and have learned to not settle for anything less than my best. Learn this, and your videos will improve. I have learned that when I get tired of animating during a session, it is best to simply shut down the oporation and continue another day instead of sacrificing frames and finishing quickly. If you feel that you are animating at a high standard, but cannot achieve the quality you want, I suggest scouring YouTube for tutorials. There are many handy techniques to make movements more realistic. Remember, as well, that quality also comes from sets, lighting, and camera.

Thank you for your questions!

Category:

Film & Animation

Tags:

• snoogly
• productions
• clay
• stop
• motion
• animation
• claymation
• plasticine
• cheese
• set
• sets
• lighting
• behind
• the
• scenes
• aardman
• julian
• nott
• score
• amateur
• bow
• tie
• sweater
• vest
• pullover
• plate
• quinn
• hebert
• wallace
• and
• gromit
• home
• made
• movie
• video
• nick
• park
• will
• vinton
• tim
• burton
• art
• david
• legoman
• studios
• grand
• day
• in
• happy
• funny
• voice
• impersonation
• impersonator

[parkerphil20]

for the replacement mouths,did you make the entire head or just manipulated the mouth?

[snooglyproductions]

@parkerphil20 Thanks for watching and for asking. Both methods have been used throughout the history of stop-motion animation,but for this kind of character, it is far easier to replace just the mouth. To have replacement heads would be difficult because the eyes and eyebrows are always different thus resulting in too many variables. Of course the option I ended up utilizing because of the type of clay I had was simply remolding the mouth each frame instead of replacing.

[parkerphil20]

@snooglyproductions -thanks for replying i think this is the best wallace tribute ever,its sooo like the original one,well done.

I use van aken,and roma plasticina,roma is better as its much harder and doesnt waver according to the climate,

How many minutes per frame it took you?

[snooglyproductions]

@parkerphil20 I generally animate at 15 fps, and for this particular project, it took me over fifteen hours total to animate 400 frames . This means that on average each frame took me about 2.25 minutes to animate.

[EGClanProductions]

can you link me to where you got your camera?

[snooglyproductions]

@EGClanProductions Greetings! I actually purchased the Logitech Quickcam Pro 9000 webcam from ebay. Just type in the product name and you will see ample "new in package" units to choose from at prices lower than you would find them from the company itself. Happy bidding!

[legomeaker101]

good 

[irongirl100]

(aplause the size of Australia!)

[TEXMEXY]

Brilliant ,really clever!

[squiddybadham]

WTF!!!

[AnnaTheWonderGirl01]

Nice claymation! This brings back my childhood.

[TheLavaBlob]

It's cool.Like it. Short and Sweet

[BenPeckover]

fantastic! wish I had the time and space dedicated to this stuff

[Erilis666]

Pretty well done! Nice job!

[BSWFIMZ]

lol

[MrBenedictDonovan]

press 3 for some x-rated action