When we got to the room it took quite awhile to set up and arrange everything so that it would fit in the film editing room i.e. the space where we're working (it's quite small even without the equipment in it!). We also spent some time on the first day attending to the models after travelling, such as smoothing the skin out a bit more and re-arranging clothes to sit nicer on the body etc in preparation to get straight into shooting the next day. The room is set up with two lights on the left hand side at varying heights (acting as the sun), a tray holding the model on a rig, the set placed at a further distance away on the editing table, a blue screen behind the set for a digital sky in post, a tripod and camera directly in front of both model and set, the laptop with dragonframe running connected to and controlling the camera and a monitor for the animator to view positioning the model each frame. This can be viewed below :

We start animating a scene by looking at the animatic as seen in this screenshot : 

This gives us a better idea of what will be happening in the scene for us to replicate. 

At each frame (we're working at 25 fps) Tom had previously written down the syllables (taken earlier from our work on the indiegogo trailer) and over how many frames each movement would be over. In the screenshot below the big "E" alongside the arrow represents eyebrow movement (up or down) and the big "H" represents head movement. Seeing this at each frame allows us to work faster and generally better as we don't need to flick back and forth between the animatic and the live view etc. Also as shown below each sound can be heard at each frame, making it easier for us to place accurate mouths based on how Lawrence said certain words. 

This is the end of our first week of shooting, having about another week and a half remaining. I think we've learnt how fiddly stop motion can be (replacing mouths, fixing finger pressed skin, slight movement changes etc.) and even though I knew it'd be time consuming actually living it has reinforced this to me even more. We've been roughly arriving at 10am every day and most of the time working until 8pm when the caretaker often comes and tells us we're "the last ones in the building." Each day we're getting around 2-3 scenes done, each being about 5-7 seconds long.  We've had a few set backs (a light bulb blew, a hand fell off and a piece of hair snapped in two at one point) but we've always managed to work around them. Even though we're really exhausted (I can't stress this enough!) it's been so worthwhile and really fun at the same time. It's very rewarding seeing the character actually coming to life and noticing how our hard work has actually made this happen. Normally I'm very self critical of my work, but at the moment this isn't too bad! (I hope).

So let's hope the rest of the shoot goes smoothly! (eeeeep)

This armature was built in a similar fashion to the wire one in my previous post. Unfortunately I didn't get a lot of pictures of the process of building it, as all of my time was devoted to making it. I actually found this armature easier to build, despite it looking a lot more complicated, as no wire had to be cut to measurement etc. It was all about securing the ball and sockets to each other (using loctite adhesive. Once built, I applied the same foam onto the armature, securing with tape, to beef out the model while still maintaining flexibility and good movement. As seen in the photos, the armature only reaches to the end of the upper arm - this is because the lower arm and fingers are made using 1mm aluminium wire (in exactly the same way as my previous wire post). This is to allow adequate movement in smaller, more fiddly areas, not making the hands too big for the body. The lower arm was attached to the upper using loctite again. 

Requirements

To make legs for the model, 3 1.5 aluminium wires were wrapped tightly around each other using 2 pliers. This was to add more strength and stability for when heavy clay is added later. 

A joint was place between the two legs to connect them and secured using some grub screws. The feet were also added in a similar manner at each end to make the model stand upright with no help.

Using 5 1mm aluminium wires, and using the pliers again, these were wrapped around each other tightly to make arms, leaving the ends free to be spread for fingers. 

A piece of wrapped (using three pieces of 1.5 mm) aluminium wire was placed into the hip joint and secured with a grub screw in the centre - the torso.

Joints for the head and breast were added, attaching the arms with 2 grub screws (one on either side). These were bent in a way to create shoulders, as seen in the photos. 

So as to not make the model too heavy, I added a light foam to the body, moulded around the ligaments and secured with tape. This means the model's body is plush, while the head, lower arms, hands and feet will be made of clay. 

The final model should measure around 270mm in height without the head, estimating 300mm with the head. This entire process was repeated a second time, creating two out of three models for the final production. 

After we did the trailer shoot, I took the files and edited a trailer in Avid for the Indiegogo page for Debbie. This consisted of a teaser trailer, followed by a pitch done by Lucy to give more information about the film and what we need.