For this last rotation I tried a new form of animation, which I had never worked with before. Stop motion.
We began by exploring a new material, cardboard, and to construct various faces from it. This was very fun and I created three different iterations of mask-like faces.

I particularly liked the owl-like appearance of the second mask, with almond-shaped and upturned eyes, a long flat nose and little circles for the cheeks.

After this initial experiment, we were put into groups of 3 to construct a puppet which could be manipulated by two people in order to be used as both a traditionally manipulated puppet and a stop motion puppet. We chose to create a human character, though ended up using one of my initial masks as its face to create an uncanny look. Our puppet, who we’ve named Gavin, has a rectangular body with bendable limbs, four fingers, a mask-like face and cardboard dreadlocks.

All of the stop motion experiments can be viewed on Padlet:
https://padlet.com/artslondon/stop-motion-a5z7pn36adhtkah7

We created several experiments using low-key lighting and a software called Dragonframe. For these initial experiments, we struggled with timing as everything ended up looking much faster than we had thought while adjusting the puppet. We also played around with light temperature – how warmer orange and colder, bluer lights affected the mood of our scene.
Then, we proceeded to play around with the technique of pixilation. We filmed some of our group members interacting with Gavin as though he were a puppet come to life. These achieved some remarkably interesting results! In both of these short animations, Gavin gets fed up with his pesky human companion and decides to pummel them with little cardboard fists.

Then on the second week of the rotation, we were given the task of creating a 30-second short film with the theme Metamorphosis. Our puppet had to undergo some sort of transformation.
We actually did little planning for this animation and wanted to experiment and see where the process took us. However, we knew we wanted Gavin to feel overwhelmed and trapped, then transform as a result of this. We used pixilation by involving our own hands and proffering Gavin various objects , most notably money, which he rejects with an adamant shake of the head.
I think the beginning is particularly successful as we played with shadows of our hands to create the impression that Gavin is constantly surrounded, giving context to his consequent transformation. We then used masking tape to create a cocoon around him and emphasising his feelings of entrapment. Finally, we went with the traditional symbol of rebirth and starting anew as Gavin transforms into a butterfly (using replacement animation) and flies away, finally free from the materialistic and shallow attitudes of the world he experienced.

Lastly, we tried replacement animation, a different form of stop motion. We were given three shapes: a circle, a square and a triangle. Then, we had to cut out a series of shapes which would allow these shapes to morph into each other. I preferred this form of stop motion to posing puppets as I thought it gave me more control in how the animation turned out. I really liked this technique.
This animation can also be viewed on the Padlet page.