On the first morning of our FAMM Convention we were treated
to talks by two very interesting and talented young ladies with very different
experiences to tell us about.
Marisa Martin gave us an insight into the life of a stop
motion animator. Most of us are familiar with animated clay models, these
characters are often to be seen on children’s television and are delightful
three dimensional objects. What we were shown this morning was animation with
paper characters and sets.
The presentation started off with a trailer that introduces
the three stars of the show which started off with an aerial flight over the
scenery with turning cogs and blimps and smoke and steam giving lots of
atmosphere. The characters were introduced and they nodded, winked and smiled coyly
with movement to their heads, hair and mouths. We all accepted this as any TV
watcher would – with no appreciation to the work that had gone on behind the
finished product.
Once we had been enlightened as to how each little element
of the face and hair and lips had been made and manipulated we were all in awe
of the patience of this girl.
Examples of the elements of the characters
Each of the elements had been hand drawn to begin with,
scanned into the computer, coloured and arranged on a page for printing and
cutting out (with a craft knife).The pieces were assembled with tiny split pins
and between five and ten seconds of movement were recorded in a day. That’s a
lot of days to get a ten minute movie!
Marisa Martin
We sat open mouthed as Marisa explained how everything was
calculated before any filming took place, with so much time involved in any one
scene, every shot counted. There was to be no cutting of anything from the
final production. So there was a lot of mathematics involved. A lot of
calculation into the mouth shape for the different sounds in speech – in the
close up shots the mouth shape was changed every two or four frames.
Amazing!
Our second speaker, Monica Pender, spoke about her
experiences as a producer of a feature film. How anyone could speak so
cheerfully about something that took so long and had so many difficulties and
set-backs amazed me. The film is available on DVD “The Secret of Moonacre” and
after hearing all about its actors, costumes, locations and the strict rules
about the length of time a juvenile actor is permitted to work in a day and the
many other set-backs that affect the shooting of a film, I would like to see
it. The film is aimed at a teenage audience and cost $3,500,000 to produce and
thanks to a blizzard on the first day of release to the public, bombed! As I
say, how Monica can be so positive and eager to work on another feature film,
amazes me.
I didn’t manage to get close enough to take a photo of this lively
lady.
So, a video enriching day was spent indoors on this Tuesday.
It is always good to learn about facets of this activity that I will probably
never attempt myself. However they give me an appreciation of the work that
others do.
AJ
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