Good news

The Obsession is going to be played at flip animation festival on the 2nd of November this year!
Only a few weeks away, i shall be attending this occasion to promote the film and see it on the big screen.
It should be a really great day and there will be lots of other great films being shown so please try and attend.

http://flipfestival.co.uk/

Degree show

My film has been up a while now but go back a post to see it in full.
I had a big screening of my film at staffordshire university on friday the 15th June, it was a great night and a lot of people came, i thought i'd put up some stills from the night:

Here i am next to my movie poster for The Obsession, with a Tobias badge on.

Here is a shot of the poster up on the wall, it was up with many other great posters such as the infamous James the Elelphant, a film that i also had a small hand in .

There was also a mural showing characters from all of the films shown

Close ups of Tobias and Sally

I also got to show off the set and puppets as well

My set with bowlfulls of badges

Sally and Tobias

A zombie Maquet created in my first year of university 

The bed from Sally's room

I also had the fox from my anti fur film: https://vimeo.com/23375993

And the octopus from my It came from stoke canal film: https://vimeo.com/33608247

Here is my film on the small screen

And here it is in the film screening room

 

I will post up more when the film gets going again and i can continue with it.

The Obsession

Here it is the final film, thank you for waiting and i hope you enjoy, please feel free to leave coments:

Okay, i will post the film up very soon.

Here is the movie poster to keep you entertained until then:

Final scene and a lot of editing

So i have finally finished my film, the last scene was finished off on Wednesday the 16th of May, here is a summery of what i did.

This post will include spoilers of the film so i suggest that if you want to be surprised you wait until the film is posted up, it should be up on this page within the next few days, but will definitely be here on or before Tuesday the 29th of May.

First of all there was a lot of lip sync, luckily i did as much as i could before swanning off to Germany, so the rest was pretty easy to finish.

Then there was the problem of having Tobias stabbing himself, (this is the main spoiler i mentioned earlier) i could not have the knife that i had built penetrate the puppet as for one thing the puppet would be ruined, for another it's armature would not allow for this to happen, so i had to create a replacement body.

Here is what i did:

Above: Replacement body of Tobias with knife penetrating him

I first cut an oblong piece of pink modelling foam for the replacement body, this was easy to stab through whilst keeping the knife from sinking in or falling out when filming.

I then covered the replacement body with the same material i had used for Tobias's shirt and pulled his dressing gown around it.

I then glue gunned the replacement body to an old bit of set so that the body would look the right height beside the background.

I then unscrewed one of the arms from the armature and secured it into the pink modelling foam, i then threaded the arm through the dressing gown giving the illusion of the same puppet, i then used Vaseline and red paint mixed to a thick enough substance and dark enough colour for the blood.

Above: Still shot from the film, using the replacement body.

After this the animation flowed so smoothly i was just waiting for something to go wrong, but on the animation front nothing did and i was soon finished and ready for editing.

Editing

So i now fully appreciate editors, the amount of work and effort it takes to edit together even something as short as my film was incredible.

I had given myself a week for editing but i was sure i could knock the film together in a few hours, i luckily also finished filming ahead of schedule giving me an extra couple of days.

I started Thursday morning, up at eight and in for editing at ten, i worked on final cut pro, a piece of editing software i was only a little familiar with, but having no other option i began work editing together the final film.

 

I had decided to split the film into three sections to make it easier for editing and began the first scene.

By the end of day one i was awestruck at how little was done, effects were complicated, the software although effective i found a little hard to get the hang of and rendering must be one of the worst things in the world to wait for.

I fully appreciate editors but would never consider this as a career choice in the future.

 

I then continued to work from ten in the morning until around half past ten at night on the library's editing macs and a week and a half later i was finished, my film was officially complete at 15:32 on Tuesday 26th May 2012.

Music

All sound effects in the film were created by me on a Marantz, i used real objects and tried to make the sounds as natural as possible.

The music that i used in the film was created by Kevin MacLeod, i was recommended his website where i could download and use royalty free music.

The tracks i found worked wonderfully with my film and i am very pleased with the end result.

Still image of Tobias from the final scene

FMX

I took a week out of filming to go to the FMX conference in Stuttgart, it was a really good week and it inspired me a lot and by the time it was all over i was itching to get back on the stop motion rig.

 This is me at our university's FMX stand

(Just behind me in the bottom left you can see stills from the film)

At the conference i was lucky enough to see some great stop motion films and also some amazing talks from people working on the big stop motion films.
I watched some particularly good talks on the Friday, first was a talk entitled 'Filming Aardmans pirates,' presented by Tom Barnes from Aardman, i of course jumped at the chance to see this and thoroughly enjoyed learning about the different methods used to create the film.

I also got to see a talk by Mark Shapiro from LAIKA, this i was extremely exited to see as we got a look behind the scenes on the Coraline movie and the upcoming ParaNorman.
This was an amazing look at how everything was made, after the talk i was able to get to see and hold some of the stop motion puppets from Coraline, this was a wonderful opportunity to see how the puppets worked.

Although a wonderful experience and though i learnt a lot it means that i have lost a week on filming, i started up again on Monday and am planning to have all scenes filmed by the end of the week, then i have left myself a week for editing and then the three minute version of the film will be complete, although i still have all of the sets so the full nine minute version can still be created after the hand in.

So i will be working hard for the next two weeks and then will have a film ready to show.
I will upload some pictures at the end of the week if i have time.

Voice actors

I am getting on with filming at the moment, i now have over two minutes of film created but i need to have three minutes done in the next month, unfortunatly i am attending FMX from the 7th so i will miss a weeks worth of filming, but i will work extra hard next week to make up for this.

Here are a few pictures of the voice actors i used for the film.

Oliver Whitely - voice of Tobias

(from left) Chloe Howley - Lynda Barnes - Elodie Markwell

Debbie - Sally - Jane

I will post up more pictures soon.

Film still and character shots

Work on the film has been going slowly but steadily, i have managed to get a little more filmed, but it is taking days just to get mere seconds done, but after my short easter break i am back on the animating wagon and am continuing to move on with production.
I have a nice still shot from the film and a few character turn arounds to show, these should keep you entertained for now, but i will post up more soon.
Also the now working title is - The obbsession - the film will from now on be refered to as this.

Still shot from the film, Sally sees her new room

Snap shots and photos

Tobias asking why?

Filming is underway, I have shot little bits and pieces, mostly establishing shots, I worked Monday to Friday last week nine till five everyday and plan to do this for the next however many weeks it takes to get this film made.

I don’t want to sound like I am rushing this though as I am taking my time and making sure everything looks good, for instance today, I got to the studio at nine and setting up the shot took so long, I didn’t take a single frame of animation until around two!

Here are some pictures of what I’ve been getting up to, the film is looking promising and I hope to have a lot more to show you soon.

A shot of the full kitchen

A scene where Tobias grabs a towel (the head was not seen and so was not needed in this shot)

The two main characters

Filming a scene in the hallway

A still shot from the film

Animation lip sync test

I have been working on animation tests and have been using my replaceable mouths to create some lip sync tests for the Tobias character.
Here is what I have been working on today:

More puppet making

Puppet making has progressed a lot more recently and I am hopefully on schedule to start filming on the 19^th

I have created hands for both of the main puppets, I am currently awaiting concept art for the other two minor characters, the armatures for which have been created using a much cheaper yet still effective method.

The difference between the armatures is shown in the photograph below.

The head for the sally character is now on its way to completion, it has been made from pink industrial foam covered in super sculpy and moulded into a face shape.

The eyes, mouths and eyebrows will be created separately.

There is a metal rod in the back of each characters head so that they can slot easily onto the armatures and can be easily moved when animating.

I have created hair for the Sally head out of white miliput, (which will soon be painted red) and have used wire at the back so that I can have a moveable ponytail.

The skin colour for the puppet has finally been chosen and the puppets have been painted.

The Tobias puppets face is now finalised.

The mouth shapes are currently being created for the characters as well as eyes, eyebrows and other extra replacement pieces.

The project is coming along and I am happy with the progress so far, I hope to have everything ready for the 19^th.

Armature tests

Today I did some tests with the puppets to see how they would move, they work pretty well but I am going to need a lot of practice before I start filming, my animation has suffered from lack of practice and although not terrible, these animations are not up to standard.

I will also need to get myself an assistant animator, I just hope that I can find someone in time, I start filming on the 19^th, so fingers crossed I get everything ready in time.

This is a fall test using magnets to hold down the feet

This is a walk test using metal tie downs to hold the feet in place

This is the final test that shows the two characters interacting with each other

Doors and sets

This film is set inside a flat, because of this most of the sets are walls and doors, i wanted to make these stand out and look either really nice or really grotty, for Sally's bedroom i needed it to look really nice and pretty, for the hallways and rest of the house i needed it to look scummy and unclean, these are a few pictures of these sets.