Testing the camera slider

We have done some test sequences today with the camera slider to test the movement of the camera as well as the movement of the characters. We have to move the camera 5mm each time we take a picture along with moving lots of characters and props on set. It's so exciting!

  

Set complete!

The animation film set is now complete! We have added the finishing touches to the background, including painting the back wall with white paint and rollers which was great fun! Just a few more replacement characters to finish and then we are ready to start animating!

Painting the background with rollers and white paint!

Painting the background with rollers and white paint!

Adding a water wash to the fields

Finishing the replacement horses

More work on the set...

On Friday we had the challenge of making all the replacement characters for the Crow, the Scarecrow, the rabbit and the farmer. It took a while to make them all look the same but we have just about finished them and they look really good. We also did more work on the set and the backgrounds, designing the fields and adding texture to the road. Here are more images of us at work...

Adding a watercolour effect to the fields

More scarecrows!

More Farmers!

Hopping rabbits!

Tractor and Spaghetti Van

The Spaghetti Van

More models have appeared on set...

Our set is getting fuller and fuller and is looking fantastic! We placed some more finished models on set today to check them for size against the other models and they look great! We have lots more work to do before we can start animating but here are a few more images for you to look at...

The Spaghetti Truck in the foreground with a horse in the background

The tractor pulling a trailor

More models...

We have had another busy day today and have made lots more models for our animated film. We have made lots of wheat, crows, rabbits, horses, scarecrows and farmers. We are going to use the "replacement technique" to animate some of our characters and so we have had to make lots of versions of the same character, with one part slightly different. For example, we have made lots of crows with the wings and beaks in different positions so that they can fly and talk. We have also made replacement characters for the farmer and the scarecrow so that they can move their arms and talk too. We had to concentrate when we were doing this so that we made each replacement character look the same. You can see us hard at work below...

Making the replacement scarecrows with arms in different positions

Making the farmers hand so that we can film a close up of him sowing seeds

Painting the replacement crows

Drawing the rabbits

The first replacement rabbit

More characters...wheat, trees, the Spaghetti Tree, scarecrows and crows!

Our Set in the making...

We are in the middle of turning our drawings from our storyboard of The Spaghetti Tree into 3D models. We are then going to make these models move in front of the camera as we bring our script to life through animation. We have lots more models to make but this is what we have created so far...very exciting!!!

The Spaghetti Truck

Different size trees, hills and windmill to create depth

The Windmill and Tractor

The Tractor

A close-up of the Tractor

Model making and Set Construction

We are very busy making all the models and sets for our film - The Spaghetti Tree. Today we made a Spaghetti Truck, a tractor, a scarecrow, plus lots of trees, wheat and hills - all out of cardboard. We designed and decorated each model and then stuck them together with a glue gun so that they will stand up in our set. This is how we made them...

Decorating the hills with a line pattern

Creating a colour wash over the trees

Decorating the Crow's replacement heads

Drawing the fields onto the set

Painting the road onto the set with a mini roller

Gluing the tractor together

The materials we used - cardboard, pencils, felt tips, sharpies, poscas and water

Set Creation Begins!

Our project room is beginning to look more and more like a studio workspace as we start to build the set for our film. Our set is going to be made of cardboard and so far we have created some hills that will appear in the background. Much more work is still to be done...but it is great to see each part taking shape.

Cardboard Hills for the background

Trees of different sizes to create depth

Our storyboard is on the wall so we can work out what props and characters we need to make.

More work on our storyboard...

We had another busy day today working with Dan to finish off our huge storyboard which tells our story of The Spaghetti Tree in pictures. It looks fantastic and we can't wait to start making the models so we can bring the story to life. Also today Yvonne and Paul have built a very large table in our project room that we are going to use to film the animation, along with collecting a car full of cardboard that we are going to use to make the models and sets out of. It is very exciting...more images to follow as we begin to design and build the characters and sets...

Drawing and planning the factory scene

Drawing and planning the factory scene