Stop-Motion Workshop @ ISA BCFE

Here are the results of the stop-motion workshop I hosted in co-operations with the Irish School of Animation at BCFE, in Ballyfermot.

I had a group of twelve 3rd year students from the Animation Degree course, and they had about 3 hours to come up with a little scenario and animate it under the camera.

Below are some photos from the event.

Special thanks to head of course Gareth Lee, and the staff of BCFE. Also thanks to Mathew Caithness, who was visiting from Melbourne, for hanging around to enjoy the workshop.

PURE Animation Showcase Evening

Hi all!

Here is the flyer for next Wednesday's showcase evening which starts at 1930 in the Kingston Hotel, Dún Laoghaire:

Here is a ltttle bit of background on the project:

The short animated films were created over the two week Pure Animation training

programme where participants developed and created animations based on

environmental themes related to the Pure Project, – illegal dumping, recycling, pollution,

climate change, etc.

Commenting on the completed shorts, Ian Davis of PURE stated:

‘Pure Animation has been a great success and all credit is due to the students and the
facilitators who were involved. They have created four really inspiring animations in
such a short space of time. Each one has an important environmental message but
they are also very funny, clever and inspiring shorts. Education and awareness is an
important element of PURE. We previously distributed a Primary School Teachers’ Pack
to all schools in the Dun-Laoghaire Rathdown area, but we always wanted to engage
with secondary schools and teenagers. Pure Animation is the perfect type of project
that provides students with information on important environment issues, but more
importantly, it gives students an opportunity to develop and explore their own ideas on
environmental issues and also learn about animation technology.’

During the two week training programme students created their own storylines and

characters under the guidance of experienced and professional animators and tutors.

Not only do the four films focus on environmental issues, the characters and landscapes

that feature in the animations were also created from recycled materials, from plasticine,

cardboard, plastic, tinfoil, fabric, old sandpaper, bin bags and lots of other recycled

material.

I look forward to seeing you there!

All the best

Eimhin McNamara

Life Drawing Experiments

A series of videos made using my students drawings:



First I set them up encircling the model, evenly spaced, so that the rotation rate would not be too jittery. Each frame is made up of a drawing which would have taken between 10-20 minute to create, using a mixture of charcoal, pastels or whatever else is at hand, so for one person to just create the drawings would take about 5 hours, so the model would probably not survive.



I then photographed each drawing, working my way around the room in sequence, so I could keep track of the order of the drawings and how they are placed in the 360 degree view of the model.



After cleaning up the images a little digitally I then brought them into Aftereffects and lined up any points of reference in the drawing, using a vertical line going (usually) straight through the middle of the head, as the locus of rotation.



By piecing them together, we can see the consistency in the pose over the multiple drawings, what people concentrate on, what is on the periphery. The interesting thing is that even though many of the drawings are quite radically different, in proportions, tone, and colour, our eyes still prefer to view the similarities rather than the differences, and the sequence of drawings feels like one rotating pose.
A video by Aoife Balfe got me thinking about doing something like this a while back: vimeo.com/user5046445

Though attributing a drawing to each person is kind of tricky here is a full list of the Production Design for Stage and Screen Students which participated in these classes:

Make Up Design:
Sarah Butler, James Christie, Amy Connolly, Ruth Curran, Caoimhe Duignan,
Helen McGinty, Ashley O'Sheehan, Marie Sweeney, Hazel Williams

Costume Design:
Molly Burns, Claire Collins, Connor Dalton, Alexandra Delaney, Audra Levinskaite,
Emma Loughlin, Niamh Ryan, Sophie Shannon, Sinéad Smith, Caoimhe Smullen

Production Design:
Chiara Byrne, Victoria Carney, Niamh Devitt, Nicole Kelly, Emily Mahon,
Fiona Patten, Brian Phelan, Gary Monahan, , Nicola Ryan


Special thanks:Martin Marley, Mark Joyce, Laura Venables, Keith Foran,
and the Production Design for Stage and Screen 1st years!


Made with the participation of:
the Drawing Project Dún Laoghaire and the National Film School @ IADT