ANIMATION EDUCATION - using her words

hey ya'll, shel here....with my latest animation exercise.....learning to speak. justin suggested i try some speaking by having my puppet say "hello, my name is lola" or something. i went the "or something" route...



this is definitely the longest thing i've animated so far, (it took over 10 hours not including all the after effects parts) and it quickly became not only a speaking exercise but a recording, mixed media, compositing and patience exercise as well. also, this time i used real lighting. this is a new puppet (lola gen 2) but she broke two fingers and a thumb while i was shooting....shoot! turns out i used some BAD (non aluminum) wire for the fingers. [i finished 4 other puppets last week too, three dogs and an Edwardo puppet and don't tell justin but i'm really hoping i didn't use any of the BAD wire on them!!!]

the awesome FLEAMAN voice is JUSTIN, who also very patiently helped me record the sound, taught me how to do x-sheets using a program called Magpie, helped me capture the video, and walked me through (or, more acurately, carried me through) all the photo shopping and compositing we did (Adobe Photoshop, Premiere, and After Effects) to get the split screen effect. Justin and son Shamus both also helped with dialogue ideas for Fleaman.

i shot it on stop mo pro on twos but the sound didn't end up matching right for some reason, had to tincker to get it to match. i wasn't too sure i liked stop mo pro's sound deal but i have nothing to compare it with, and i wasn't all that confident about what i was doing so i can't assume it's a problem with the program.

i learned a ton of things on this exercise, alot of it having to do with soft ware, but one animation thing is to keep moving the puppet slightly and taking pics even when she's sitting "still" to avoide the freeze that happens a few times in this shot.