Ok so to star off with I think I'll talk about the things I thought went well in the project. I think most of the stop motion went well. I think my strengths came from good planning into the stop motion so when it came to the actual film there was very little left to be figured out. In fact if it wasn't for the fact that he was too heavy to stand on one leg, everything would have gone exactly to plan and there would have been no compromises made during the filming. However he was too heavy and I had to quickly edit some of the script while filming because I had very little studio time. In the end though I think having to re edit the script was a blessing. It is at the moment a little longer than had been asked for and if it had included the parts of the script it was meant to before it would have been much to long. I also think that the parts I removed were unnecessary anyway and I think they might have confused the viewers a little. The whole thing seems less cluttered without it. So in terms of defining the plot I can't really complain about that haha.
Now to get into specifics. I'm really pleased with the opening shots of the film -
I think it sets up the film really well. We see he's in his pyjamas and he's getting ready for going to bed but we're also seeing from the point of view of the thing that's in your closet or hiding under your bed. I think it's a good touch seeing as the shadow character doesn't appear that often in the actual film. It sets him up to be there and means I can build his character in other ways. It also means we get to see a bit of the setting and also our other character. We know he's checking for monsters through the rest of the context of the film. He's very young looking and he's wearing his pjs. Lastly I think it's a good move because you do wonder who's eyes you're seeing this out of and why, it adds enough suspense.
So nextly I'm actually just going to mix this now and talk about good and bad. So the shadow character -
So to begin with I wanted this shadow to move entirely with the after effects puppet pin tool however like I mentioned in a post below that didn't work at all. So in the end I'm not to pleased with his appearance. I think he looks out of place wight the rest of the animation. A little to typical cartoon in comparison to the stop motion half of the film. The other problem was that he looked a lot better as a dark character against a lighter background but because of the way I had the set lit there are a lot of absolute blacks in there which meant that the shadow had to be lighter to see it. So he's really not what I wanted, he's not that bad! He's just not at all what I aimed for. I really wanted a fluid and shifty character. I maybe should have experimented with oil paint on glass to see what that got. Always learning though!
The other part that annoys me is the parts where there's just the shadow on black. It doesn't look like it's got any weight to it. It just looks flat and shitty. So thats annoying.
Also it really bugs my mum that I didn't put the hinges on the door right but those are normal sized hinges on a tiny door. Putting them on properly was going to take a lot of effort and time that I could expend on it because I was a day into my 3 day filming slot and I hadn't even started. So that's just a compromise everyone's going to have to learn to live with.
This scene I am really happy with -
Like I said earlier this character is top heavy and does not stand by itself. I did not have to use a rig to create this scene and it only took me one take to do it in. I'm pretty sure it was jut dumb luck really but I'm still very proud of the way it turned out.
There's not really any pictures left to post to explain things but I feel like my biggest achievement this film is the script and the visual storytelling. From the angles at the beginning to the symbolism of the window and the light. The way the shots are lined up I think looks good too. I'm really proud of the way the entire thing was written. Just not so proud of the way I executed it. I can't wait till the film I see in my head and the film I'm capable of making become at least close to each other, if not the same thing.
Anyway I guess to break that down I'm pretty happy with the way I have written the story and storyboarded it but I've let myself down with the shadow character.
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