Backgrounds....

After making some of my tester animations and ensuring that the blue screen technique was going to work (which thankfully it did) I set about making some of my backgrounds - since the backgrounds are going to have to operate as moving elements none of the aspects featured throughout are completely secured, instead I used blue tack to position them. I have also had to think about the backdrops themselves in terms of layers, I opted to use long strips of colour and various patterned papers that could be slid horizontally in After effects in order to make it look like the background was moving as my characters moved through it. Creating these sense of layers will also help in the long run to further integrate varying textures which will break up the large blocks of background colour.

The actual ideas for the backgrounds themselves are inspired by elements throughout the song (the mountains, wild woods and stars are all lyrics that I have tried to represent visually). Colour wise I have tried to generate a sense of contrast in order to separate them all out and really highlight the fact that these are very different locations. Hopefully this will help to generate a sense of vastness and journeying. The journey theme being a key component to both the song and folk genre all important elements that I wanted to really cement visually in order to ensure target audience appeal.

Opening Location: Park/Woodland

The first location that I have had in mind since I began the project is this woodland area. I wanted it to be soft enough to really allow the characters to become the main focal point but still be a strong element on its own. I had specific colour schemes for each of the backgrounds (which I decided upon when buying papers) and I am particularly happy with the pastels that I have used within this one. The tree which is a mix of colouring pencils and floral patterned paper is my illustrative input for this location. The grass I made out of a long strip of light green paper by cutting vertical strips into it, the base I made from crumpled brown paper mixed with floral patterned which I layered below the lighter grass. I also opted to draw onto the grass with colour pencil in order to add a little bit of illustrative detail. 

Although the background below presents a fully formed scene I intend to blue screen both the trees and the grass in order to generate some different backgrounds using the same elements. This will help to generate some variety and will mean that I can make both trees and grass move at different speeds.

Second Location: Mountain

After making the park background I had little bit more to go on in regards to the others (which bits would need to move, how it would all work together). I opted to integrate a bit more of my own illustrative skills into the rest of my backgrounds through the use of colour pencil and collage. I ended up making my own patterns with my pencils to fill in some of the background blocks of colour which looked very striking when paired with strips of patterned paper.

Third Location: The Cave

Out of all of my locations the cave was my favourite one because it was actually pretty intricate. I intend to blue screen the stalactites so then I can use a few and layer them atop one another to generate a sense of depth.

 Fourth Location: Desert

Although I really enjoyed creating the cactuses and patterns for the desert background I don't know whether its too bright and out of keeping with the other locations. I plan on manipulating the photograph to soften it to see if this works a bit better to ensure that it remains in keeping with the other backgrounds. Having said this I do quiet like that each of the backgrounds embodies a season (park=spring, mountain= winter, cave=autumn, and desert= summer) which was a happy accident brought about by the use of contrasting papers and tones.

The Nights Sky

I generated some nights skies as end scenery in order to make it feel like time was passing, and give the idea a sense of movement and time. 

Now that I have my backgrounds sorted I can photograph all the elements on a blue screen and then finally start putting my stop motion characters into some scenery to generate my narrative.