Pixilation

I have had two seminars where we have been learing and experimenting with Pixilation. I have tried looking up a definition of sorts of pixilation and this is what I found - "Pixilation is a stop motion technique where live actors are used as a frame-by-frame subject in an animated film, by repeatedly posing while one or more frames are taken and changing pose slightly before the next frame."

In our first seminar we were introduced to pixilation and we watched an animation called Neighbours by Norman McLaren.

I thought it was really clever how the characters looked like they were floating and sliding around. I also liked how there are no voices, there is just music which helps to describe what is happening, and the tone of what is happening. I thought it was a good story and was made in an interesting way which was funny at times too.

So then we got into groups and took our own photographs. My group first went to a graveyard where we played around with popping out from behind graves and then appearing somewhere else. Then we had two members of our group walking through the graveyard, looking at a gravestone and then being chased by two ghosts. We tried to make the ghosts look like they were floating and I think it has turned out well.

We then made another one where we used a (clean) bin. Someone got into the bin at the start, where we then zoomed into the bin, and then when we zoomed out the bin would be in a different location where someone else got out of the bin. Then we would zoom in and out and someone else would get out of the bin. It was really fun and at one point we were on a busy street and managed to get the traffic to fit in with it so it looked more realistic.

In our last seminar we put the photographs onto pc and edited them on photoshop. I learnt how you can edit just one photo, and tell photoshop to remember what you did and it can then do the rest of your photos in the same way as the first. I chose to edit the graveyard photographs and I wanted to make it look quite old and spooky so I added a grain to it and experimented with saturation and then made it slightly blue in colour so it looked like it was becoming near night time.

I have found both seminars really interesting and I have learnt a lot of new things. I decided to research other pixilation animations and found a lot of music videos that have used it. There is one that Coldplay have done but I'm not sure if it is actually real because in some parts it looks quite fake. I also found a Slipknot music video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tJl8zo__6jM the music might not be to everyones taste but I really liked the actual video. I think some parts of it are done really nicely and it just looks good.

This week we are going to be putting our photographs together to make them into an animation which we then later have to present. I'm looking forward to it.