Animation Research and Planning - Claymation

The Task

For our task of animation, we were asked to create clay miniatures of our choice at which we had to give a biography for each character. We were asked to create a name for the character, their age, occupation, motivation, religion, nationality and usual or interesting traits. We were also asked to create or find a set that the character would situate in to understand what they are like personally. Once they were created, we were asked to have some sort of movement to them so that when they are filmed them (took pictures), they would give the illusion of movement. The movement had to relate to their biography and their scenery.

What Went Well

When creating my clay miniature I believe the thing that went well was the idea of what I wanted to do. I created a dinosaur because their body structure is quite simply and creating it through clay seemed like a good idea. Drawing the body structure was easy however when it came to the making of the structure, that was a little different. Editing the footage was fairly easier and took no longer then 10 minutes.

What Didn't Go Well

When it came to creating the dinosaur out of clay, the weight was really off balance and the edges were some what ridged compared to an actual dinosaur. My model was seemed to fall over constantly which made it hard to finish my clay miniature. Another thing that didn't go well was the filming of my clay miniature. Sometimes some of my body would come in to shot, which concluded me restarting some shots. Also when filming my miniature, it would sometimes fall over because of the weight, which again concluded in me repeating some shots. This was very frustrating.

What I Would Do Differently

One thing that I would do differently is probably create a miniature with a simpler skeleton, and with an even distribution of weight. This will help solve the problem of the miniature falling over whilst building it up and filming its movements. Another thing I would do differently is asking for some assistants in filming as it was hard to move my miniature, making sure it stands up and pressing the capture button on the camera. Maybe with more people, it would be less frustrating.

Did I Enjoy Claymation?

Personally, I didn't really enjoy the claymation section of animation, as it takes a lot of time to create something that could become very frustrating to control. Also the skills in creating the clay miniature has to be at a good level for the clay miniature to look good. However I was happy with the final result of my 3 second claymation animation.