I have just uploaded my Minor Project on YouTube, Its called 'A Scarecrows Unfortunate Life'

For this animation i built a HUGE set full of crops which where made of pipe cleaners and Card, then when i was animating i just moved the crops bit by bit so it looked has if there was a breeze blowing.

I made to characters for my story, a scarecrow and a little spider. 

 

I have just finished animating and I think it went quite well, and I'm sure their will be shots which if I had time I would re-shoot. But I need the last couple of weeks to do editing and record some extra sounds. 

The scenes that I enjoyed animating the most was the drumming scenes, because I liked working really closely to the sound that I had recorded, and animating the African drummers in time with the sound. The most complex part of this scene was when I had three drummers to animate at the same time!!!!!!!!! It took a while but i liked the result.

Here are some shots from my first scene,

                            

 

                      

Here is some shots from my second scene,

                      

                      

In the African room i worked really hard on making sure the room looked interesting with, lots of boxes, African wall hanging, cupboard's, the drums and the African fabrics used. 

I wanted the two rooms to have a contrast, with the first room being plan and a bit boring, then the second to look exciting, and fun.

I have been spending the last couple of weeks animating. I have had a few problems to tackle already as I needed to make a stop motion puppet walk, so I animated it again and again and again!!!!!!!! I am now at the stage where I think it looks OK, but I would try to film it again if I have time at the end. I feel that the school scene in my animation is starting to work as I start editing the animation into my animatic.
Today I exported my animatic with all the animation up to now, ready to show at the Animation Screening. I watched a talk from Arnoud Rijken who is from II Luster Productions and Alvaro Barbosa, Joao Rema and Jose Fonseca, who are from UCP, Portugal. They explained about the work they do and how the do it, how they work in the industry and especially the stages an animator goes though to get funding for there film.
I am really pleased that I was able to show my animatic to everyone in the room as it high lighted problems with my animatic, because whereas I know my idea really well, to have people watch my film with no idea what they are about to see has given me important things to change or add.
Arnoud gave me some good points to think about e.g. to think more about the sound to show the character's emotion and the location of the character. To make sure I show a contrast between the two rooms, with the African room being magical and the school being normal.
I will now plan my new shots in my first scene to help the viewer know the location of the character and re-editing the beginning of my animation to experiment more with the sound.