More tests on the model/actress....

These tests required the model to wear the full costume. This meant painting her arms, legs and chest. This took me around an hour, putting in the colours and pattern but with not as much detail as mainly the shots were going to be not close up. It was also the first time I was seeing the final mask and costume put into the setting of the woodland. Very exciting stuff!!! I was able to test out 4 different shots, recording them each several times. This was imperative, as I found that when I got to check the speed of the animation on photoshop, it was evident that a couple were way too fast.

The first of the tests was the character stretching out after being curled up and covered in leaves. This will hopefully be the first shot post-production. Here are the two that were to the speed desired:

The framing is focused on the knee and feet area. This is the start of revealing the transformed, finishing with the reveal of the face/mask. I was lucky enough to have really good weather this morning, so i was able to get good lighting on the model. I think the second of the clips is the best of the two as the time and actress' body language are better than the other.

The second of the tests follows the first animation, where the character, Callisto, stands up bewildered and confused to where she is and what happened after she saw Juno. Again I had some initial trouble with getting the frames/second right. I think the last of the animations works ok. If I have time, I may go back and re-do this shot as I am not completely happy with it:

Also annoyingly, you can see my actress' shoes, a careless mistake on my part. I'm glad that these mistakes have been made with a little more time to spare, as I can perhaps redeem this shot by re-shooting.

The third experiment was with shadow play, taking on my experience with shadow play in the narrative project. This seems to be a viable method to show the audience the newly distorted figure without revealing too much. After animating, I decided to edit one of the animations as some of the leg movement looked a Michael Jackson dance move. I have cut out a couple of frames and it seems to work much better:

Here is the original video...

And the edited version....

I like that it ends with the character walking away this can then lead onto another shot but also has the option to be cut.

The last experiment I undertook in the woods this morning was a bear walk. I envision that this could be the end shot. I want to experiment fading the end few seconds into black or a more appropriate colour: