Exploring Stop Motion Animation

In class we were set a task, this was to get into groups of two or three and make a stop motion animation based on an original idea in order to explore the field further to see if we might be interested in using this for our final film opening piece. 

I was paired with George Huggins and we both decided to take the virtual game 'Pac-Man" and make that the theme of out animation. We started by making the models out of play-doh, ensuring that measurements and colours were correct according to the original, we added googly eyes to our models and proceeded to make the background set - a maze. After this we set out our characters on the sheet of the A3 paper background, moved them to where they needed to be and took a photograph, we repeated this process until we had reached the end.

The idea of this stop motion animation was that, like in the game, ghosts would be chasing pac-man, trying to trap him so that the individual playing the game looses, we played on this and initially let pac-man run free until he took a wrong turn which lead to his death and loss of game. In the end you will see some shots saying 'Game Over', as the original would had you lost.

As this was practise we didn't want to make the film too long, in fact we underestimated how short the film would be even though we had taken what had seemed like a lot of shots. Through making this film pro's and con's of stop-motion animation films became clearer to us and easier to understand. Below is our final end product (Pac-Man stop motion animation film) and further below it is a list of pro's and con's of a stop motion animation film both in terms of making it and the final result.

Below you can see some pro's and con's I have come up with of stop motion animation...



PROS	CONS
Brings an image or virtual game to life	It takes time to make the models + set and get them the exact way you want
Can be fun to make and watch	If you accidentally move a model too far and take a shot when you play the film the model moves unrealistically quick
It is a different and unique method of making a film	Having too much animations and models can be distracting and cause the audience to lose focus
It is controlled, you do not have the hassle of finding ‘actors’ that may turn out to be unreliable	This genre mainly appeals to children only, which results in a limited audience