Initial Pitch

 Pitching my master's idea.

To begin undertaking my master’s degree, I first needed to present an initial pitch. This pitch is a rough overview of my starting point ideas of areas I will research and investigate throughout this course of study. 

 

My specialist area of interest is stop motion animation model making. This was an area I investigated and developed while studying my degree. For my master’s I want to push my research and testing in this area further and experiment with ways to combine traditional processes and techniques with modern technology. 

Speaker notes: The idea for my project is to use a mixture of modern technology combined with traditional processes to create a collection of stop motion puppets. 

Each puppet will be a unique character, with different personalities, quirks and appearance. I will investigate how a characters bio and backstory can affect the characters appearance and mannerisms. Will look at genders, religions, disabilities, ect 

The overall idea for my project is to look at the representation of characters in animation and how a character's backstory, personality and other traits affect their appearance, movements and mannerisms. To create these characters I will investigate the use of modern softwares such as ZBrush, 3DS Max, Maya and Adobe Medium for sculpting. I will also consider using technology such as VR headsets for digital sculpting and creation of assets. These will then be created physically using traditional materials and processes, combined with 3D printed elements, such as heads, replacement faces and hands. I will follow the production of the puppets by conducting animation tests, to test their range of movements and actions. These animation tests will not only see if the characters are developed and perform correctly, but they will also implement the character traits and bio information, to test if the representation of the character can be achieved and captured correctly. 

Speaker notes: Degree in animation, Teacher of animation, Specialise in stop motion puppets

Learn more about ZBrush, Learn Maya or 3DS Max, Learn more about VR animation and sculpting, Learn and source 3D printing 

In my first draft of the pitch for my idea, I would also like to consider the possibility of putting the captured stop motion animation back into a VR environment. Though with time considerations I am not sure if this is possible. This element of my intended project is something that I will need to lease with my subject specialist about. 

The idea for my project is a combination of my interests and area of study from my degree and job, combined with inspiration from watching stop motion content in VR. Such as the behind the scenes look at the Isle of Dogs and the stop motion VR experience by Tippett Studios, which is the world's first short animation VR experience, this was directed by Phil Tippett and is based on his Mad God experimental film series.

Speaker notes: The combination of digital with stop motion especially VR is very new.

VR is very clean cut, stop motion is not. The mix is going to produce some interesting pieces of work. 

The use of stop motion and VR is very new and offers a realistic, life-like quality that isn't often seen in VR environments, it goes against the traditional clean cut aesthetic of VR. I am interested in the combination of these two very different processes to not only investigate the link between traditional and modern processes in animation, but to also investigate a traditionally hands-on method of animation with a possible modern counterpart. As VR technology continues to advance it is possible that in future we would be able to animate in a fully virtual space.