Initial Research 10/01/08

Looking at the brief, me and Jeff noticed that the type of feel that the company are looking for is claymation. So we have both started to look at different films or television shows that have used clay or anything at a clay-like nature.

This programme is a short skit witch is shown between programmes on the nickelodeon channel. It simplicity attracts the attention of its target market, however its attraction expands when you are able to recognize the skill and the artistry of the work. It is a fun comedic sketch that only needs a short amount of time to complete its high entertainment value. If the characters where more developed you would probably cast them as cavemen, this is the classic sterotype of the two characters.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DF0jZepcQSI&feature=related

Pingu was a very lovable character who was able to capture an audience without any real speech. Most of the success of this animation relied on the actions it did rather than the speech. It's a very colourful and vibrant and even though the noises are irregular, a clear story is being told throughout each episode. The sound that they have used adds to the humour of the story and the uniqueness of Pingu himself.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oTWv63RyLP8

Wallace and Gromit is clearly a very famous and well known part in the claymation world. This duo in fact have crossed into main stream animation paving the way for other stop motion hopefuls. The characters personalities, Wallace been a tremendous inventor leaves endless possibilities of ideas with no restrictions.

what I have noticed from these claymation pieces is that the animators have made it clear that you can still produce all the basic aspects of the principles using clay. Alot of the animations used quite a bit of squash and stretch in their pieces, I particularly saw it alot in Pingu. This might be a notion that me a Jeff my incorporate into our piece.

Another aspect that I noticed is the colours used for the characters are very blocky permanent colours primary in a way. I think this also helps establish this kind of style in its own animation genre, and would help me and Jeff portray this style to a more effective standard if we took this to account.

These two films Flushed away and Monster House both show a sense of claymation without even using clay but CG, I think this is along the lines of what the brief is asking us to do.