Régates Royales, Cannes

During my week in Cannes I spent the week mainly taking photos of the classic yachts which flock over from destinations all over europe, specially for the Régates Royales. What a spectacle! 


This is my 2nd year of coming to this event to capture these beautiful yachts in their full glory, and I felt much more at ease with being part of 'the press'. As well as relaxing into the atmosphere and scene of the event, I am learning more and more about each individual boat as the years go by. I can see now why the owners are so proud of their beautiful yachts.

A FEW OF THE THOUSANDS:

Many many shots were taken, but here are a select few...

Photos by Rak

Cannes

A little trip to Cannes before the start of 3rd year is just what I need....

AT A GLANCE:

Photos by Rak

THE MARKET:

Photo's by Rak

COLOURS AND COLLECTIONS:

Photos by Rak

AMAZING GLASSES:

These were definitely my favorite items from the market, but unfortunately a little out of my price range!

Photos by Rak

Exploring Animation

In my 2nd semester of 2nd year photography, I had the option to switch for a term to animation. I made the decision to try this as I was keen to reintroduce my love for fine art and film and combine it with photography.


Here is my evaluation for this project, along with the final film.

The Flight

Final Edit

The Flight from Rachel Dunning on Vimeo.

Research

I started the project by looking at early film pioneers such as:

George Melies

Arthur Melbourne Cooper

Emile Cohl

Windsor Mccay

Although I enjoyed their work I didn’t think I would be looking too closely at their specific animations. They did however give me a good insight into how animation was first created and the starting points to methods such as stop motion, kinetoscoping and rotorscoping. 

I then moved onto looking at more recently made animations so that I could decide what sort of films and methods interested me. The first which really caught my attention was Ryan Larkins, Walking.

I enjoyed the pace in which this short film moved and was particularly taken by the colours and mediums which he uses to draw his characters. The soft pastels pinks, purples, greens and blues against the white background is simple yet striking. I decided that I would want to use a similar color pallet in my own film and was keen to work in a similar drawn method to him.

This then changed when I looked closely at a short animation created by Elliott Dear who used cut-out, mix media methods. 

I really liked the style of this and wanted to create something with a similar feel. However, although I loved the look of both of these methods, I decided that as I came from a photography degree, it would make more sense to focus on a film/photography piece combining stop motion and live action. 

I made a few test stop motion animations with my digital camera, to get an idea of what it looked like and how slight movements need to be so this works effectively. The first I made was just of a person working towards the camera so I could look at the process of a person walking and the second was using ornaments which I collected from around our house to make a set. I called this The Hungry Pig. Although at this stage I was still not set on a definite story or script, it helped me decide that I wanted to use elements of stop motion in my film and still use different materials as much as possible.

'The Hungry Pig'

By Rak

Style and Script

I knew I wanted to create a fantasy, slightly surreal piece set in a ‘magical’ wood, which would include one main character, a female, who would wake by a tree, lost and confused, looking for an escape. My influence for this was based on Yuri Norstein’s, Hedgehog in the fog.

Hedgehog in the Fog

By Yuri Norstein

This is where a little hedgehog finds himself lost in a foggy wood. Whilst looking for a way back to his friend (a bear cub), he comes across several different forest creatures. His animation style is sophisticated even though he works with flat cut outs, his work looks more like smoothly moving paintings or sophisticated pencil sketches and has an excellent sense of depth. His color pallet in this piece as well is very similar to the one I wanted to use, with pastel blues and purples being used in the sky, and dark shades used in the forest. I really liked the contrast of these colours and felt it enhanced its magical quality. Additionally, the hedgehog, who is scared and inquisitive has a similar personality to that which I wanted to give my main character.

Writing the script was quite challenging. I found it difficult to settle on a single idea but after several thought process’s, I decided to use the idea with the girl waking alone in the forest and as she tries find her way out she comes across different things which attach themselves to her dress. Eventually she is saved by her dress which flies her out of the wood. I was much happier with this idea than previous ideas I had for the film. I could see a definite beginning, middle and end and clear movements happening within the film which helps keep the audience interested in the story. In addition to that it gave me the opportunity to incorporate fashion, styling and photography in this which is something I am interested in doing in the future. 

Character Design

I found designing the main character interesting because you can completely make up a persona for someone. Had I been drawing my character I could have also designed the look of her as well. However, as I decided to use live action and stop motion photography I needed to use a real character. I felt this would also be an interesting contrast in the make believe, magical wood she was in. The character’s exact appearance couldn’t be decided until the week before the film shoot as I needed to find out which one of my fiends would be able to spare a day to model for me. Other than that, I was able to decide her personality (scared and confused but inquisitive) and her costume. I new that she would be wearing a long black dress, and other objects from the wood which would gradually attach themselves to her outfit.

Character Drawings

By Rak

These things were, barbed wire, a rabbit, vegetation, and birds. Initially, I wasn’t sure how I wanted these characters to appear. I thought about drawing them for a while, but then with the look of the real character, I decided it might be more fitting if I used real objects and made them come alive either through stop motion, editing on after effects or making puppets. The design of these didn’t become clear until the eater holidays when I started purchasing and looking for props. I decided to buy fake barbed wire (so the model wouldn’t get injured), a rabbit mask (more practical than to animate one on) and a toy flopsy bunny. I thought at this stage that the birds would be crows and when I looked for these online, they were all massively expensive. Instead, I found some cute and colored birds which were actually more fitting to the look of the piece.  I decided to leave the vegetation until nearer the time of shoot, and the stag could be made during the edit.

Designing the Forest

Designing the forest was a relatively easy decision. From Yuri Norstein’s film Hedgehog in the Fog I had a pretty clear idea of how I wanted it to look. Pastel purple, pink and blue lace sky, with dark tall trees in the foreground, but nothing overly detailed. Initially I thought I would make a set for this, but then, when I decided to focus on film and photography, it made sense to go to the New Forest and find a big wood I could take photos in an then edit.

At this stage in my project I was still unclear on whether I would be using music or sound effects or both. Although I was looking at several pieces, I knew I would not be able to get an exact feeling of what would be right until the film was almost finished. I think I knew it would depend on what happened during filming and how the quality would come out. There were still elements which were going to be a big question mark, but I felt this made it more interesting and added an element of excitement and spontaneity to the project.

Storyboard

I drew up a story board once I had most of my design plans made. I had a clear idea in my head at this stage of how I wanted it to look and what events were going to happen. Without the storyboard I would have really struggled to take the right background images and it helped me stick to a tight plan when I was filming the live action footage. The storyboard was also made into an animatic using imovie. This was mainly for other people to get an idea of how the film would look and what sound effects I would use. 

Animatics

The Flight Animatic from Rachel Dunning on Vimeo.

Production

Over the easter holidays I had to make sure that I had all the props I needed for the film shoot, my background images were ready and photoshopped, and that I had done all the relative research into using a green screen and dv cameras. I knew there would be people around to help me but as this was going to be my first and final attempt for this project at filming live action in front of the green screen, I needed to make sure I was really prepared for what would be happening on the day. 

On the day of the shoot I had to arrive early before everyone else to set up the green screen. I had planned to have some lighting on the screen but unfortunately these were in high demand by thirds years at this time. Instead, I decided to set the screen up near a window. As it was sunny the natural light was enough, but I just needed to make sure that there were no creases in the green screen which could make shadows and ultimately effect the editing. I had some friends to come in and help as I knew I would not be able to do everything my self when I started using the stop motion camera, and I also wanted their opinions on what would look right or not whilst shooting. They were incredibly useful as I was initially very set with how I was going to bring the animated objects to life but it wasn't necessarily going to be the easiest way. Their outside perspective made it clearer for them to see what would be more practical and less time consuming. The model I decided to use was also excellent. She was professional and took the acting part very seriously which I doubt many people would have been able to do.

Although the day was rushed, I felt it went as well as it could have done for my first attempt and I learnt so much from testing out so many new pieces of equipment and software in such a short space of time and under pressure.

Editing

The next day, I immediately started the editing process as I expected this to take several weeks before the finish. I used adobe premier and a machine which took the recordings off the dv tape to convert them into an avi format on premier. I could choose exactly which footage I needed as on the day I tried to take plenty incase the first take wasn’t what I wanted. 

I was then able to put the footage into adobe after effects, where I did the rest of my editing. I started by selecting the exact footage which I wanted to use, keyed out the green screen and then put the right background behind it. This didn’t take as long as I thought it would, but when I watched it in real time, I was not happy with the stop motion footage. I decided that with the extra footage that I took I would probably be able to find replacement footage. With this I then made my own stop motion films using my digital camera and a sheet of plain blue fabric. I did this with the birds, the rabbit, the vegetation and the stag. 

The set up pre edit

Scene 1, Shot 1

Once I added these in the film started to look much fuller. If I had more time still I would want to layer it up more. I am really glad that I decided to do this otherwise the film would still look half finished. Using adobe after effects was so useful and I learnt so much from using it just over the 2 weeks of editing.

Final Touches

Once I had finished the film edit, as expected I thought I would be able to sense what sort of sound effects and music needed to be used. I decided to use a song by ‘Air’ called ‘Alone in Kyoto’ and added forest sound effects with this. I created it in garage band and made sure that the timing at the beginning in particular fitted with my chosen title and what was happening in the film. I was really pleased and surprised with how well the music went with the film.

I am really pleased with the final result of the whole project. I know there are still things I would change if I had more time but I am still really pleased with what I have managed to achieve. I am hoping to continue learning about different animation methods as I know this has covered only a tiny area and I’m sure it is something that I will find really useful in the future.