Waitress

Camera: Rolleicord Vb
Film: Rollei Retro 400 B&W

ActionSmapler - 1st Film - Set2

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ActionSampler - 1st film - set1

I recently brought a LOMO ActionSampler. Here are my favorites from my 1st processed film.

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Summer-Time-Cruising

Moving our home is a more frequent undertaking compared to that of land lovers. We move our floating home around every 2 weeks to a new location in between an eight mile stretch of canal. Here is a photo of us cruising only a month or so back. It feels so much longer than a month ago, I guess its because of the recent weather change. Then it was warm enough to get the pastey white skin out on show and now, as I am writing this, I sit beside our burning log fire and drops of rain dribble down the windows. Good-bye Summer.

Victoria Park

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This was taken with my Rolleicord Vb. I think the film was Ilford 100ISO Black and White 120.

"The Black Yellow Night" - The Set

The set was very basic, cheap and simple. In true student fashion most of the materials were sought from skips to keep production costs to a minimum. I built the set on blocks of wood so the whole set was raised 4 inches of the table top, this allowed me to have a series of magnets underneath the set floor that would prove essential in pining the models down to minimize unwanted movement. I learned from making my first stop-motion that it's a good idea to glue down and secure anything that can move that shouldn't. When I was filming I was often in very low level lighting and so there was the occasional nearly catastrophic stumble in to the equipment or set. if i hadn't gaffa taped or super-glued down everything from the bed to entire set itself then large chunks of filming would be rendered useless.
The lighting consisted partly of angle-poised lamps and partly of LED's. For the scenes that required low level lighting I used a mini lighting rig made of LED's. I found LED's to give an interesting light to the set and they were also very adaptable in trying to find the right light for each scene.
The final scene of the giant wasp taking flight above the grandpa's bed required me to build a pulley system above the set to hoist the wasp up in small increments at a time. admittedly the pulley idea was last minute and I never planned to have one from the beginning. This meant that the way i built the pulley system was based more on a fast approaching deadline rather than building a pulley a system that best mimicked the movement of a real wasp. in hindsight this should have been better planned but i am still pleased that i managed to get the very heavy model of the wasp to fly in some sort of way.

"The Black Yellow Night" - The Giant Wasp

This is my most ambitious model to date. I had the vision of a Giant Wasp being the penultimate fear for the grandpa, but realizing this character physically proved many a challenge. The character design began with initial sketches to get a idea of scale, body construction and character. I studied the common wasp to understand its physical make-up but simplified some parts and exaggerated others (and added a few spiky bits).

Character Sketch of Wasp

The armature was very much trial and error, and i never new if my design would actually hold up during the filming process. Again the modular armature parts were supplied by Armature FX and these allowed me to design an armature that hopefully would allow me all the movement i needed as well as being strong enough to withstand the animation process. As with my other models the bones or in-between joint sections were made primarily of twisted wire, with the addition of two part putty to create 'bones'.

The bulk of the wasp's body was made from polystyrene. I used a hot wire cutter to shape the polystyrene and then a thin layer of plasticine was applied for the finish. The wings are wire framed with acetate segments.

"The Black Yellow Night" - Grandpa Model

As I said before, these posts are to show you the process of the clay animation "The Black Yellow Night". I wanted to do this because when researching how to go about making my own animation i found great resources on the internet, which helped greatly in my planning of an amateur, low budget production. i am very grateful to those who share their process and not just the end product, so i wanted to make some of my own workings avaliable for other artists who may be at the same stage as me in creating their own animations.

Plasticine Model Head of 'Grandpa'

In this post i would like shed some light on how i made the grandpa character. As with the 'boy' character and the 'giant wasp', this model is finished in plasticine. i used the readily available and relatively cheap brand of plasticine called Newplast (£1.80 for 500g at my local art shop). Sculpting the head and face of the 'Grandpa' was pretty much a case of trial and error. I would start with a ball of plasticine and mold the ball into a face shape that i liked, then using wooden tools i sculpted the finer details of the face. I went through this process at least 7 times before I sculpted a 'Grandpa' that i liked.

The armatures of the Grandpa, Boy and Wasp were made using a mix of armature joints supplied by Armature FX and my own wire/putty combination for the bones. I chose to use the modular joints supplied by Armature FX because they are a lot cheaper than ordering an armature of your own design from a professional company and they are very adaptable.

Armature of 'Grandpa' with a built up plasticine belly and shoulders

Armature of 'Grandpa'behind

fully clothed Grandpa

"The Black Yellow Night" Stop Motion Animation

This is my second stop-motion animation. A six month long undertaking which was to be my final major project of my university degree. Four months of pre-production planning consisting of sketching, story-boarding, set design, set construction, plasticine modeling, armature design, armature fabrication and lighting design. The actual filming process only took two weeks, but they were two weeks of blindly stumbling around in the dark in a small hot box room making very slow progress compared to that of the real world. The final weeks were spent in post-production, creating the soundtrack and making a DVD to host the final animation.

Here it is:

The Black Yellow Night (stop-motion clay animation) from James Ednay-Cox on Vimeo.

the pictures below were taken on set during production. In future posts i hope to give an insight to my process in making some of the models and set. i would appreciate any constructive criticism on my animations as i know i am at the tip of the ice berg in my understanding and skill as an animator.



If you enjoyed this, take a look at my first animation "Lemons Stole My Shoehorn"

Home Sweet Home

This is our floating home, a canal narrow boat named Harlequin

Polaroid Post...Secret Garden Party 2009

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Polaroid Post...Glade 2009

I have so many amazing friends that make my festivals unforgettable but particular brilliance needs to be given to the SPARKLY NUTZ crew. Some members can be seen here but many more are prowling around the festival fields conjuring up the magical mayhem and silly nonsense that is SPARKLY NUTZ. This year Glade and SGP have been messy and beautiful at the same time, hopefully Shambala will follow suit.

look out for the Sparkly Nutz Gang if your lucky enough to be at a festival, they're the fun starters that will make your weekend. (tell tale signs of sparkly nutz damage - muddy space hoppers, pink pegs, tortured teddy bears and winner medals!!!)

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Polaroid Post...Bloom Festival 2008

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Polaroid Post...Secret Garden Party 2008

Its FESTIVAL time again and to celebrate i'm posting some of my favorite Polaroids from previous festivals.

SECRET GARDEN PARTY 2008...

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Romka Magazine

As much as i like perfect photography that seems unreachable in my own practices, i also have a love for photography that is presented as amateur and imperfect. Amateur photos hold something special, something that reminds me of personal moments and to see other peoples personal snapshots is very intriguing. If you feel like you know what I'm on about then check out Romka Magazine. Its an online downloadable magazine that collates amateur photographs submitted buy anyone who wants to.

download free issues direct from:
http://romkamagazine.com/

images from Romka:



some photographs that feature in the magazine come with a short insights or explanations of the photos birth, and some are presented simply with the name of who submitted it. i think for me, these types of photo are so interesting because they offer such an insight to a real, unpretentious, imperfect world that we can all relate to. plus they look like photos that come from cheap instant cameras of which i and probably you used as a child to capture great moments of childhood memories.

Lemons Stole My Shoehorn

Lemons Stole My Shoehorn from James Ednay-Cox on Vimeo.

'Lemons Stole My Shoehorn' is a stop-motion clay animation that tells the story of Tom and his missing shoehorn. This is my first animation using the stop-motion technique. I produced the the models, armatures, set, and composed the soundtrack. The models have simple wire frame armatures and are finished with plasticine. Although this is very amateur i couldn't of enjoyed the process more, i enjoyed it so much so that i decided to make a second stop-motion claymation, it will be posted here shortly...

a few production pics...

Sound_1

I have decided to post the results of some of my experimentation with sound. Every now and then i have time to play with various sonic instruments and it is my goal to... well i don't really have a goal, but i deeply enjoy it. The good sounds that come out of my tinkering are cataloged and could later be used for music composition or sound design for moving image.
Hopefully with each sound that i post, i will be able to explain the process and technical equipment involved to produce what you hear. The material may vary somewhat as i am interested in recording many different instances of sound from natural soundscapes to the abuse of electronic instruments.
So here goes....

Sound_1




The crux of this sound is made by an old dulcimer like instrument called a guitar zither or sometimes harp zither. I found the zither at a local Saturday market, its a bit battered and out of tune but despite its dogged looks I'm sure it will fuel many future sounds. I electrified the dulcimer by taping a handmade contact microphone to the inside of the sound hole which along with a mic pre-amp gave a pretty good starting sound. I then transformed the dulcimers small acoustic sound hole into a cavernous cathedral like space, by drenching it in Reverb (not a very good one) and adding a bit of EQ and a Filter.
The knocks and bangs that resemble the sound of a piano lid being shut at the far end of a cathedral were made by hitting the metal tuning pegs with a metal bracelet.

Hug A Chicken

Hug A Chicken...was written on a sign next to a make-shift chicken pen at a small local festival a few weeks ago. As you can see it had a great affect on my partner, she was as happy as can be.