Stop Motion Film

 

Evaluation:

We were tasked to create a short stop motion film as part of our skills development. We had full creative liberty to decide how we made this film, what it'll be about and how it'll be executed. We decided to go with using Lego for the film. We started out with planning what the plot will be about, which we decided to go for the idea of a guy being mean to people and facing the consequences of his actions. After that, we started to write a small script so we knew what the main character (Tanner) would say to each character he interacts with. We then layed out the set we built across a table and positioned the camera in a certain spot and left it there for each scene to make sure the film works as it should. In between each frame we would move the character slightly and then take a picture of it, and repeat the same process throughout the entire time we produced this film. It definitely came out better than we had anticipated as creating a stop motion film was a task none of our class has done before, so it was stepping outside our comfort zone but we managed to do it better than we had hoped. One moment i think that worked well was the beginning scene with Tanner falling down the stairs, it was smooth and executed really well since an action like that is rather tricky to do in a stop motion film. Another part I think worked well was the voice acting as none of us have done it before so it was a step out of our comfort zone too, but it was fun to do. However it would've been better if my lines were included in the film. One of the main problems we had whilst making this was working with the Legos, they were pretty vulnerable to being moved, they weren't well supported so we had to use blu tack to keep some characters standing and there were some moments were the camera moves slightly or a piece of the set would move. I think this film would've been better if we used a different, stronger material like clay or plasticine as it is easier to create characters, pose them and keep them in position. Another factor that could've been improved was the shots themselves, there was an inconsistency in what was focused as some shots like the first interaction with Tanner and Neville was a bit blurry .It also would've been better if some lines of dialogue got used where it was meant to, for example, the ending scene with Neville on the camel was meant to announce that Tanner is gone and the people would cheer, but they were silent and it looked like they were randomly dancing. Overall, this project was better than we thought it would of been, but it is very clear to see what we could of done better in it.