Animation Test!

Annoyingly Blogger won't let me embed the video so click here to see HD version on Vimeo!

For a long time I've been wanting to try some stop animation and finally got around to my first tentative steps with photographer Cliona O'Flaherty. We used Dragon Stop Motion which is an amazing application and I can already see the huge potential with it the more we play around with it.

This first test is a simple enough affair but good lord I couldn't believe how much pre production was involved as well as how time consuming it would be!

The idea was to showcase a cross section of characters and artwork I've been working on over the last year or two so I had a bunch of them printed on heavy textured stock and cut each one out with a scalpel over a number of days (aaaagh!). I then stuck tooth picks and skewers to various elements and built the little set.

We tried an initial test of the whole thing at home but the lighting was too inconsistent so we moved the whole thing to Cliona's studio in South Studios using different light sources and it worked much better.

After about 6 hours of construction and photography we finally wrapped it and sent the files to ace editor Andrew Barry who assembled and graded it and made it all look pretty and cohesive. I was so chuffed that The Vinny Club let us use the amazing song 'It's not you it OF' from the album Rocky IV Reckyrd. Check out the whole song and indeed the album, if you're a child of the 80's and loved video games it'll knock your socks off.

So anyway, have a look at all 35 seconds that took weeks to make.

Can't wait to make more animations!