Punk zombie character design

When I first began to show a real interest in animation, I had put a lot of thought into a zombie animation that I wanted to make. Although I had no plasticine at the time, I had wrote a short script and drew a few brief sketches. The character which I wanted to create was a punk zombie. I had made a created an opening scene for my as portfolio in year 12 which was extremely successful. I loved the whole process of research, planning, production and evaluation. I thought long and hard about how I could animate my character in a zombie. I found some clay that was being used in art and created a punk zombie. Although I knew that I couldn't successfully animate the zombie as clay turns solid, I made a prototype of how I would like my zombie to look.

MY FINAL ZOMBIE :)

Making my animation set x

This is the hill which I am making for my animation set. I made the hill out of chicken wire which I shaped into the hill shape. I then cut lots of strips of mod-rock and dipped the bits individually in water and covered the chicken wire in strands of mod-rock. After the mod-rock had went solid, I cut really thin strands of mod-rock and twisted them to make the textured hill from The Nightmare before Christmas.

These are pillars which I am making to put either side of the gate. These are made from blue foam which I got from the technology department at school. The technician used an electric hack saw to cut the blue foam into the correct shape. Before painting the pillars, I had to paint the blue foam with emulsion. I have left them in school drying and I am sure they will be dry by tomorrow :)

These are the gates which I have made for the entrance to my set. I have made the gates from wire and florist wire. I think the gates were the most difficult to make as they took the most time as they were really tricky to handle.

The Nightmare Before Christmas Set

For my current animation project, I am creating an animation set very similar to Halloween town in The Nightmare before Christmas. I started to create a hill with the signature gate that we see open at the beginning of the movie. Tomorrow, I am going to make the walls that sit either side of the gates. I made the hill using chicken-wire and mud-rock. The gate is made of florist wire and normal metal wire. Will get some photos up tomorrow!

Fruit or treat animation

This is a screen shot of my most recent animation 'Fruit or treat'. I was inspired by the stop motion animated children's television series, 'OOglies'. I bought the fruit and googly eyes and made small halloween costumes. I created a small set out of cardboard and black paper. I made the box as dark as I possibly could. 

Alice in zombieland

MyX film production course!

During the summer of 2010, I applied to and was accepted onto the 4 week MyX film production course based in Northamptonshire. The Northampton based film production company Wildfire studios ran the course with help from Northampton museum. During the 4 weeks, I met some of the greatest people which are now lifelong friends. The film course really did allow me to explore the world of film and gave me the greatest team bonding skills there are. Waking up at 7am for 4 weeks and taking a 90 minute bus to Northampton during the summer holidays wasn't really the way I had planned to spend my summer but I believe that without attending the course, I wouldn't be where I am today. There were 7 people accepted to the course and I had never met any of them before. We all experienced working independently aswell as working in groups and with our two course leaders. After the first week of basic team bonding challenges and general film production, we were given our assignment of making a film based on artefact which inspired us. Northampton museum and art gallery allowed us to enter the museum storage where the public aren't allowed. There were thousands of things to choose from. From paintings to shoes, we were all amazed at the oppurtunity which we had been given. When I came across an old wedding dress, I knew straight away that I wanted to use it as my artefact. I decided to go for a 'Corpse Bride, zombie, revenge' theme. I worked with two girls from the course on the film. One of the girls chose a weapon and the other chose a mask, we incorporated all 3 of our chosen artefacts into our film. We were given another fantastic oppurtunity of going above the Northampton library where they had a copy of every Newspaper of the last 100 years. With the two girls I worked with, we visited local charity shops where we bought a dress really similar to my artefact. We could not use our original artefact because they were hundreds of years old. We found replacements for the weapon 'stake' and the mask. My friend who was in our group had a real love for maskmaking, She made a purple mask especially for the film. We were all given the oppurtunity to gain an arts award during the course. As everyone was working on their bronze art award, I had already completed it in year 10. I began doing lots of work towards my silver art award but never actually got to complete it(something I want to achieve this year..) We were each asked to come up with a short workshop. There were all different workshops which people had to offer, from learning to speak Japanese, mask making, photoshop tutorials, drama improvisations, jewellery making and my own, specialising in costume design from rubbish.

With each of us speicialising in different areas of the arts, we found how we could bounce ideas off of eachother in order to create something with each of our own input. We filmed The Vampire Strikes back over 2 days in Northamptonshire. On the first day of filming, we shot in a graveyard. I played the vampire bride and our course leader Daniel played the vampire groom. We got most of our filming done on the second day. The second day was really good as we came our of the museum in our costumes and shot infront of a large crowd of people in Abington park. One little girl even appeared in our film as the bridesmaid. On the final day of the production course, parents and friends were invited along to join the VIP screening of the Vampire strikes back aswell as the two other films that the two groups had made. We even had a visit from Katherine Prescott, who played Emily in series 3 and 4 of Skins.

Over the 4 weeks, I found myself the happiest that I had been before. I found that working with people who wanted to see my work and get involved with it were the perfect motivation for myself. Although I was working with these people, I formed the greatest of bonds with them which made me think a lot about the career path which I want to take. If I actually loved getting up at 7am every week day to travel to Northampton by bus to work from 10-3 each day was what I loved to do then film production was definitely for me. I haven't looked back since :)  

Walking around the museum as The vampire bride.

Second day of filming, yes that's me in the pink wearing a wig...

We all won cameras and were given certificates for completing the course! With Katherine Prescott.

First post

:)