The design cycle.
The sequence of phases trough witch a design evolves. For example: concept, design, analysis, simulation, and test.
The design cycle is a system where you will have to fit your intended subject and it's other related topics into the design cycle. It can be used for any subject because ties pretty simple, and makes your project easier.
Step 1: investigate, you will have to look around for topics related to your intended subject. Resources will have to be sought.
Step 2: design, you will have to make decisions and solutions to make your project complete. (a project isn't a project if it doesn't have your decisions and solutions)
Step 3: plan, in this step you need to know what to do, how it will take place, and precise calculations may be needed.
Step 4: create, this is the stage where your plan will take place, you will have to be precise and accurate if you really want a good result.
Step 5: evaluate, this is the final step. You will really have to be sure with your project. Go over things make sure they are all correct, write about what you think.
A flip book or flick book is a book with a series of pictures that vary gradually from one page to the next, so that when the pages are turned rapidly, the pictures appear to animate by simulating motion or some other change. Flip books are often illustrated books for children, but may also be geared towards adults and employ a series of photographs rather than drawings. Flip books are not always separate books, but may appear as an added feature in ordinary books or magazines, often in the page corners. Software packages and websites are also available that convert digital video files into custom-made flip books.
When researching online for examples of flip-books I struggled to find any videos of a photographic flip-book. All the videos I found where of flip-book's that have been animated. This made me think that when I come to making my own flip-book I should take my images in the studio instead of on location; meaning that there aren't ant distractions in the background. The background will just be white, as if it where a piece of paper like on the animated flip-book's. This is my favourite example of a flip-book that I found online...
I think that this flip-book was flawless, they used 120 frames per second, there's so much attention to detail.
These are the contact sheets of the photos I took in the studio today...
Looking trough these contact sheets I've figured out that I need to use _MG_9646.JPG - _MG_9719.JPG removing a few black shot images in the middle to create my flip-book.
Here are all the images I am going to need to use to create my flip-book
Now that I know what images I need to use to create my flip-book, I need to print and cut them out so that I can attach them together at the side so you will be able to flick trough the images.
What is a Zoetrope?
A zoetrope is a device that produces the illusion of motion from a rapid succession of static pictures. The zoetrope consists of a cylinder with slits cut vertically in the sides. On the inner suface of the cylinder is a band with images from a set of sequenced pictures. As the cylinder spins, the user looks trough the slits at the picture across. The scanning of the slits keeps the pictures from simply blurring together, and the user sees a rapid succession of images, producing the illusion of motion.
A Classic Zoetrope.
Here are some classic examples of strips used inside a zoetrope...
Although with mine I am going to use photographs that I've taken.
Changing Moon
Running Horse
Ideas for my zoetrope.
Me and Jess are going to create a zoetrope together, but instead of using a ready made strip from above, we are going to go out and take pictures to create our own using photographs instead of drawings. One idea that we had was just a person walking across he front of the camera, for a practice idea to see how well it worked. We thought that this was quite a simple idea, inspired from the 'running horse'. We figured this would be hard to go wrong.
Once we where actually out taking the pictures we came up with a few different ideas, just testing out how things worked. We ended up skipping infront of the camera to see if this was more interesting to watch than just walking, because the horse was running not walking. We also tired burning a dandelion and photographed what happened on burst mode, we weren't too sure if this idea would work for sure, but we said if not we can always change it into a gif instead.
Contact Sheet
Contact Sheet
Contact Sheet
Contact Sheet
Contact Sheet
Contact Sheet
Contact Sheet
Contact Sheet
Contact Sheet
Now that we have images to use, me and Jess need make our zoetrope.
To do this I took a template offline and loaded it into photoshop once it was uploaded I added my images on to it so when its printed it will be ready for use straight away.
Before
After
Now that the strips have been made they need to be printed, cut out and then stuck together making sure that the pictures are facing in.
Once I had glued these strips together I showed it to my tutor just make sure I had done it correctly. Only to sadly find out that the pictures we had used aren't going to work very well. And told me that me and Jess would be better off taking pictures of something simple with a white background so its easier to see what is going on. So now me and Jess need to go and take some more suitable pictures before we can continue with our zoetrope.
A thaumatrope is a toy that was very popular in the Victorian times. A disk or card with a picture on each side is attached to two pieces of string. When the strings are twirled quickly between the fingers the two pictures appear to combine into a single image due to the phenomenon and persistence of vision.
Today thaumatropes are not used as much, but they are still really simple to make. Today at college we have been given the task of making one, but using pictures that we have gone out and taken instead of drawings.
Find a circular box, and draw around the outside of it on to card. Once you have done this cut the card to be left with a circle of card.
Next you have to choose the two pictures that you are going to use on the thaumatrope.
Here are my two images that I chose to use.
Image1
Image2
Now that I have my images I need to cut them out to the same size as my circle of card. Once that has been done I stick one image on each side of the card, remembering that one side must be the right way up and the other must be stuck upside down.
After all the sticking has been done, I have to make a hole punch on each side of the thaumatrope and attach some string so it will be able to spin around.
Following a stop-motion tutorial this morning, I was told to get into a pair or a group and then given the mini task of researching and creating our own 15 second stop motion video.
Research:
Stop motion is a technique that makes objects appear to move on its own. The object is moved in small increments between individually photographed frames, creating the illusion of movement when the series of frames is played as a continuous sequence.
When looking trough different stop-motion videos online for inspiration, me and Jess stumbled upon this... PHARAOH LONDON ADVERT.
We found this video really creative and interesting to watch, I really like how everything in the video has been made from cut-outs eg. Some of the letteres have been taken from magazines to create words when put together.
When speaking about this video we said that it looks good, and isn't really that difficult to make; more time consuming than anything. So then we decided that for our short stop motion video we would create something similar to this.
We went out with the camera to take some images that we could use in our stop-motion, we took the images on burst mode, we used this because this captures images in a successive motion. (This would usually be used in sports photography) This will then capture movement over several different images, so when they are played one after another with some speed, it creates the illusion of movement.
Contact Sheet
Images taken for StopMotion
Contact Sheet
Images taken for Stop Motion
Once we where back from shooting and we had uploaded our photos, we then had to print them and cut them out so that we could photograph them for our stop-motion.
Contact Sheet
Stop Motion
Contact Sheet
Stop Motion
Contact Sheet
Stop Motion
We had now taken all the images we needed to create our Stop Motion Video, now all we had to do was upload them on to the computer and edit them together. To edit them together we had to use Premier Pro. The final touch to this Motion Video was adding a feel good upbeat song into the background, so there's something nice to listen to as well as watch.
This is our overall finished Stop Motion.
Overall I'm really pleased with the way our Stop Motion ened up. Especially for saying I had never done anything like this before. I really like the part where it looks like I'm running across the page, using the burst setting on the camera really helped to make this work, although if i where to change this, I would have me running across the whole of the page instead of just a section of it. To improve it I would also have the images of me where its cropped at the waste on the edge of the page, so there aren't any gaps. I do really like the lettering at the beginning and end of the video, I think this idea worked really well, the letters are clear to read, and interesting to watch. I found this task relatively easy, defiantly enjoyable! But I think if you where trying to create a stop-motion any longer than 15 seconds it would be difficult because of how many different images you would have to take.
