kourtneysstopmotion: 2015

The concept derived from the idea of personification; Wanting to give inanimate objects character. Initially I wanted to animate my younger sister's toys and make them come to life when she went to sleep. But when I tried to map out how it would look, I didn't see it having any direction. Then I thought about a house which magically comes to life, but again I couldn't think of how to execute this idea. Then, I suddenly thought about how Alice and Wonderland is about a girl being taken through this world where she doesn't really know whats going on and that inspired me because it helped me establish the connective I was looking for. Alice helped create a flowing narrative.

Planning was quite an adventurous procedure as I walked around my house and looked at what I could animate and how would it work. At first, I planned to incorporate random things like a coin pusher games and other arcade like games, but I found that they either didn't match the story or it was not feasible. Then I utilized the fact that I was using intertextuality to create my stop motion, and watched a few scenes of Alice and Wonderland for some ideas. That's when I was able to create the tea party scene, where Alice is told it is her birthday, hence the birthday cake. Also when the white papers turn red like when Alice painted the white roses red. Also the last part with there sheet wasn't planned that way at all. But then I thought about how Alice and the Jabberwocky and the sheet basically portrayed that. The trainers were used to represent the whit rabbit who guided Alice throughout the stop motion.
I was also inspired by Matilda and her telekinesis. Instead of Alice not knowing what was going on and being quite vulnerable due to her oblivion like in the film, I wanted her to have more control over what happened. As you would in a dream. Hence why I gave her the ability to bring objects to life with her hands. I think that it made it more fun that she went along with the weird and unusual events then if she was bewildered throughout.

Filming was frustrating because it was a long process, as well as dealing with when things weren't working out and we had to come up with new ideas to make things work. For example, Alice' transition into her dress was suppose to her being covered in papers, then one by one the papers are taken off, revealing her new outfit. But it honestly just wouldn't work out, so we thought of material that was easier to work with, being the black bag. It took a long time to film because of lighting reasons, wanting to film in the daylight, as well as working around each others schedules. But we did move from scene to scene quite quick as Kayan (who played Alice) was easy to direct and gave me exactly what I asked for.
I used mostly close ups, mid shots, eye levels to contribute to narrative; I thought that it made sense because you've got a girl who's in this peculiar place where strange things are happening, therefore the audience would wanna see her reaction and how it makes her feel, so it seemed appropriate to show a lot of face expressions through reaction shots and medium close ups. I only used maybe one establishing shots in the opening sequence to show where she was. I wanted to keep the action in close and intimate shots. I didn't feel that the audience would be as involve and catch every detail with long or wide shots. But a mid shot or a close up helped to highlight every component of the frame and allow the audience is able to focus on everything in the frame.

What went well was the narrative. I felt like it could be easily followed due to the references to Alice and Wonderland which I think made the audience enjoy it more because they were able to spot the similarities and they were narrative with the story. I'm happy with the way the narrative was executed as the content was wisely chosen and structured. A selection of scenes were quite smooth which made it look really good; In particular, the part when Alice is transformed by the black bag. Also the white and red roses part was effective because of the creativity of the idea. The sound effects worked really and gave more meaning. The jars playing football was a good example of fluidity and how the sound effects strengthen the effectiveness. The soundtracks used also worked well. I think it really contributed to the story and helped build an atmosphere. Originally, the song 'Head that I Hold' was suppose to play to the end, but the song was shorter then the stop motion and stopped at the part where Alice was about to get dragged away. I thought the atmosphere had changed, so it only made sense to change the music.

What didn't go well was the lighting issues. Due to the fact that we filmed in a house, we were exposed to a lot of natural lighting. This was a reoccuring issue because we had no control over when the sun would randomly come out then disappear then come out again whilst we were filming. And even with the same lighting settings, you could see the difference in each picture. This is evident in the piano scene where you could see I was trying to colour correct my way through it as each picture seems to be lit differently. Colour correction was used a lot whilst editing because the lighting that I and also the sun had caused. It did fix some issues but also encouraged loss of quality. I accidentally kept switching the lighting options and also the size, as well as trying to fix dealing with the low lighting in my house and the changes of sunlight. Near to the ending, when Alice is about to face the Jabberwocky sheet, it was very dark lit room with dim lights which I tried to fix with colour corrrection. But it was so dark that brightening it meant a grainy look. I wasn't happy with that but at the same time it worked because it contributed to the scary atmosphere, and the fact that Alice was in a dream.
With the size issues, I had to export each stop motion scene as a seperate clip because of the various sizes so I could adjust them all at the same time, but I didn't export it in HD hence why the quality varies from poor to good at times.
The opening didn't go as I planned. The title came and went way too quickly. The cuts were too fast and it was way too bright which made Alice look orange. It was also the longest to film and edit because I put a lot of pressure on it because Alice' entrance; A characters first time on screen is important and I think I was trying to make it effective. But it didn't turn out as smooth as I wanted. I would definitely do that part again so the whites and the saturation aren't so harsh.
Another part I weren't so happy with is the key scene when Alice draws the door open. It wasn't as smooth as I wanted it and the key sign did look like a wheelchair sign I was told.

If I were to do this again I would take extra care to make sure everything is as smooth as it can be. I would that ensure lighting and size settings are set and not tampered with. The settings I film with for one day, if continuing to shoot the next day I would write those settings down so I don't get so many different lighting's; The slightest changes shows in a stop motion. I would also try and shoot somewhere where I have more control over lighting, so that it's not such a big concern next time as all I would have to focus on is being smooth and precise with movement.

In conclusion, I am happy with the outcome of my stop motion. I had fun filming it regardless of how tedious the process was. I love editing it and seeing it come together. I think I met my goals in regards to following my initial ideas as things most things worked out as planned or better. I think I related to my target audience as I have showed it to both young and old and they liked it. I think it is because Alice and Wonderland has the young audience from the Disney version, and the older audience from Tim Burton's psychedelic approach to the film. I also think people enjoyed it because of the stop motion technique. Not a lot of people are familiar with it and find it intriguing as it'snot something you see on television everyday and I think it was appreciated in this stop motion. I learnt a lot about animation through this and have gained new skills. I hope that the technical flaws did not ruin it and it is enjoyed by others.