Stinky and Our Hero

Here are some rough drawings for our animation characters. Soon to be built for stop-Motion using Re-Cycled materials!

A Stinky Guy!

Last night the group discussed the other character in the film; Stinky.
First we decided on what he should look like then we did some rough designs for him which everyone really enjoyed!
These are some of the things people suggested:
He should mostly have an open mouth with his tongue lolling out.
His eyes could be 'skew-wiff' (like Homer Simpson is sometimes).
His clothes are dirty with staines.
He has fleas and is always itchy.
He has a 'funky' walk with one arm up as he moves.
He could have a big head. Yellow fingers.
A slow talker who burps quite a lot.
He laughs at his own bad jokes also falls asleep mid sentence.

Even though he has a lot of faults this guy is lovable.

Oh yes, he travels around on a skateboard or roller skates. (Easier to animate!)

These are some of the rough designs we came up with.



Ragged clothes and stubble tells us he's down on his luck.



Natasha is very proud of her drawing, we love the earrings and bobble hat!



Phew! What a stink. How do we animate this in stop motion? Hmmm.





Love this long greasy hair and horrible underpants!!



I like the big ears on this fellow.

Lights, Camera, Action!

The Thursday Night Group at Central Youth club Kensington are writing and creating an animated film. It's to do with the important subject of re-cycling and during our first sessions we looked at some traditional stop motion films like Jason and the Argonauts, the original King Kong and some films by Aardman Animation, the makers of Wallace and Gromit.











There are lots of different parts that go into making an animated film:

1. The first and most important part is the idea.
2. Then we write the story down as a script, this includes all the dialogue or speaking parts and what happens.
3. Design, we’re going to make a stop-motion animation using models that we will build ourselves. We have to decide between us what the characters will look like.
4. When we have a good script written and characters designed the next part is to make a storyboard. This looks a bit like a comic but with directions for all the people involved.
5. Next we need to record the voices for the characters in our animation. Some people will be really good at doing superhero voices and some will be good at making models, some will get involved with writing the script others will enjoy being an animator.
6. When we have the voices recorded and models have been built then we can look at our storyboard and start animating. This is when we use the camera to photograph our models as we move them around and make them live.
7. Finally we can add sound effects and music, this is great fun and some of you might want to get involved.

We already have a good idea. to start off with, our film will be to do with re-cycling.

We have two main characters;
The first is a kind of cheesey Super-Hero who really wants to tell the world about re-cycling.

The other is called Stinky, he can’t see the point of re-cycling-he's a bit lazy.

Cartoon Types

In cartoons there are a few different types of character design that people watching will recognise straight away.

A cute character Looks a bit like a baby. Large head compared to his body. Small nose and mouth Short arms and legs pot belly.

A Dopey character is usually bent forward with a Long skinny neck, a Big nose and Big feet. This type could be good for the naughty character in our film. The Heroic type has Broad shoulders, a Big chest sticking out, Long legs and arms with a Smallish head.

This is what our hero may look like??? Some of us had a go at designing our main (super-hero) character, we then put all the drawings onto the table and decided which parts of each design we might use when we build the model for animation. Everyone liked the spikey hair on one! Also the Logo with wheelie bin, Six pack tummy and a Ragged cape with lots of R’s. Click to make bigger.







This is the rough design we came up with for our main character. Good Eh! We looked at how some cartoon characters have catchphrases that they say in each show.

Homer Simpson says “Doh!”

Bugs Bunny says “Whats up doc!”

Tweety says “I tawt I saw a puddycat!”

Road Runner says “Meep Meep”

Daffy Duck says “Sufferin’ suckertash!”

Fred Flintstone says “Yabbadabbadoo!”

The Incredible Hulk says “You won’t like me when I’m angry!”

Tony the Tiger says “They’re GERRREAT!”

Some characters, like Morph, don’t say anything at all!

We had some ideas for our Hero’s catchphrase:

“Remember the three R’s” “Reduce, Reuse, Re-cycle!”

Reduce - Cut the amount of stuff you use in the first place and have less stuff to throw away.

Reuse means use things again like refilling containers instead of buying new containers full.

Re-cycle means use old things to make new things. >

The Script!

Before we write our script we need to settle on a theme, this is the real meaning of the film.
It’s to do with RE-CYCLING and our theme could be:

Reduce – Reuse – Re-cycle – you know it can save the world!

Three Acts

Most film scripts are written in three parts called acts; act one, act two and act three.

A long feature film which lasts for hours or a short cartoon which lasts just three minutes can both be written using 'The Three Act Structure'.

Act One

This is at the start of our film, here we set up the story, introduce the characters and the setting where the action takes place. This part usually takes up about a quarter of the whole script.

It's best not to give everything away here at the start, imagine driving up a hill and not being able to see the other side!

Act Two

This part usually takes up about half of the script, it's a good place to put most of the action like chasing around. At the end of this act is often a point where it looks like the hero will lose out, he has to summon all his strength to overcome the 'baddie'!

Act Three

The last part of the script is where any questions must be answered, who did it? Why did the do it? What things have the main characters learned along the way? We have to satisfy the audience. This part, the resolution, usually takes up about a quarter of the script.

This diagram illustrates the three act structure.

We also looked at how some script writers use these seven points to help write a script.

1. Introduce your main character and setting – Where is s/he? What is s/he doing? What is his/her character weakness?

2. What does s/he want - The main character finds out or reveals that s/he wants something, or discovers s/he has a problem that must be solved.

3. Initial actions - The character then sets out to solve his/her problem or get what s/he wants. 4. Set-backs - Because s/he is not aware of what it is s/he really needs, s/he will usually go about getting what s/he wants the wrong way. This will bring him/her into conflict with other people (both enemies and friends) who don’t like what s/he is doing.

5. Conflict - The arguments and fights become increasingly heated until it looks like the main character will be defeated.

6. Final Struggle - The main character summons his/her strength for a final attempt to achieve his/her goal.

7. Endings - Whether the main character succeeds or fails, s/he discovers from what’s happened that there is more to life than they thought.

We then watched Wallace and Gromit in – The Wrong Trousers

to see if those seven points worked in the script for that film.

1. Introduce your main character and setting – Wallace and Gromit live alone in a large house.

2. What does s/he want – Wallace wants company (and money), but he is forgetting that he already has his faithful dog Gromit.

3. Initial actions – Wallace takes in a shifty lodger, the mysterious penguin.

4. Set-backs – Gromit thinks the penguin is a known criminal and tries to make Wallace suspicious too. Since Gromit can’t speak, Wallace thinks he is just being jealous and banishes him to the doghouse.

5. Conflict – The penguin tricks Wallace into putting on the radio-controlled techno trousers and forces him to commit a robbery. Wallace tries to fight against the trousers, hilarious

6. Final Struggle – Gromit rescues Wallace and together they capture the penguin after a dramatic chase.

7. Endings – Wallace admits that he was wrong and should have trusted Gromit all along.