Animating the Piano Commission

This week I've been animating the piano and puppet that I made as a commission for a friend of mine. I even made another puppet accompanying him on guitar (the guitar made by Daisy). This will be useful for practising my stop-motion skills and something that I can put in my showreel. As I'm working on my own, I'm taking on all the cinematography and lighting duties in addition to the animation and planning, so I can improve these skills as well. 

Pre-edited shots:

My favourite shot to take was of the piano, in which the camera slowly rotated around it while it was being animated. I managed to achieve this panning shot by attaching the camera to a small tripod, which was attached to a microphone stand that was able to swivel. Another tripod then gripped the front of the camera for stability. I was very pleased with the final outcome as it wasn't too shaky.

To make the other puppet, I recycled the monster character I'd made last year. This meant I had to add an extra arm as the monster only had one. I removed the old plasticine and replaced it with clothes that I made from found materials (eg. odd socks/a fabric bag), as I prefer working with this to plasticine. Both the arms snapped in the process as the wire was old, however I was still able to control them enough to be able to animate with them. 

What Went Well

• This will be good extra content to put on my showreel
• I enjoyed experimenting with moving camera shots
• The spotlight and mask tools in After Effects are good for creating an atmosphere
• I understand more about cinematography and enjoy it a lot

Criticism

• It took a long time having to sync the action with the song I made
• I don't want to release the song yet so the video is silent, and parts of it still needed fine-tuning 
• Green-screening was a big issue, so I had to mask the puppets instead, which was time-consuming
• Some shots could be lit better
• The guitarist's arms were hard to animate as they'd both snapped