Pixilation Project //

Pixilation is classed as a stop-motion technique, where the human body is used in the same way puppets or similar are used in animated stop motion sequences. The actor becomes a living mouldable shape, that can be used to act out anything - realistic or otherwise. This technique is often used to blend animation and live action together.

Each frame is captured with a single image - a photo. These photo images are lined up much like how animated frames would be, for our project we were told to use 12 frames per second. Which wouldn't be fast enough it'd speed by and wasn't slow enough it'd look dull.

When I began storyboarding my ideas out I based my project on the theme of 'parent and child'. I know I wanted this project to be more comical then serious and rather silly. I was heavily inspired by my grandmother with the character I played, the parent. And dressed up my friend to semi resemble a child; basically, I forced her to wear blusher and put a silly head band on her. I also begged a friend of mine to capture the photos.

 When filming I didn't expect for us to race threw all the shots as fast as we did. We ended up completing the storyboards on far too few frames. I also didn't expect to get as hot as I did and ended up having to take breaks every few frames. Not only that, I'm pretty sure my friends knees were red raw by the end of filming. Sorry Jemma.

 In the end, after I had transferred all 325 images into the Mac, I began editing them into a video format with 'After Effects'. I struggled. I don't know if it was the software or me, but I find after effects so difficult and pointlessly complicated to use. Also, when editing and saving the video. An unknown error occurred. Where half way into the animation, the frame size would shrink. I had and STILL have no idea why it did that. I also have no idea how to fix this problem and ended up saving the video anyways..

Over all I'm pleased with the end result of this project, considering this was the first time I was introduced to 'live action filming' and Pixilation in general. I would like to revisit this media in the future and perhaps even mix the 'problem' with resizing within the video.