Animation process.

I am doing a 3D stop motion animation and have made a jack in the box and have bought a victorian clown like doll and spinning top to use. I have also built myself a set using a box, wallpaper and some carpet. 

To create the actual animation I used iStop Motion moving the box, doll etc a little at a time and pressing space bar to get the camera to take a new shot. 

The handle on the box was held in place with a disc of wood on the inside and some tape so that it could be stopped in any position. 

When I had animated using iStop Motion I exported the video as a quick time movie. 

 I imported the music to Final Cut Pro. I had edited this at home using the Audacity music editing program. I wanted to create a surreal a creepy feel with my animation and so eidted my music ot help create this effect. I slowed the music down a little, to make it "hang" in the air as it goes along, almost as if it was struggling to play through the note and onto the next. I then copied the track and placed it in a new track. I reversed this and slowed it down. This creates a very surreal feeling to the sound as it plays backwards as well as forwards. 

After that the animation was loaded into final cut pro where I edited it. I used scale and keyframes so that I could crop the footage where my hand was visible animating. I also used this to make sure that my close ups were well composed. 

I then used filters to desaturate the image. I allowed a very small amount of colour to come through into the video. This gives it a timeless quality, and also make it quite surreal. 

I then altered the brightness and contrast of the video to enhance the visuals and really create the surreal feeling to the animation. 

I then used the text tool to add the credits at the end. I used the cross fade video transition to makes this made in and then out, to give a smooth, professional feel to the end of the animation.