My Media Product - Adam Bacon - 2010

This is my final media product. I am happy with the outcome of it, and after viewing a lot of different types of stop-motion videos I think it is very good. There are some small errors in it, such as various things disappearing, and I think the duvet goes on a little too fast at the end, but all in all I'm really pleased with it. I think all my research into stop-motion animations paid off.

Cravendale Milk Advert - 2007

This advert always makes me laugh. And it is a brilliant example of stop-motion animation. It's short and sells the product very quickly. I love the way it uses bold colours in the video. My stop-motion is now complete and I shall upload it to YouTube tomorrow and put it on my blog. I am happy with the final outcome of it.

Play-Doh - Sony Bravia - 2007

This is one of my favourite adverts of all time. I love the way that the stop-motion has been used to create thousands of clay bunnies running around New York. Clay is the most common tool for stop-motion animation but it can also be the most frustrating. Below is a fantastic video about the making of this advert:

I have nearly finished doing my own little stop-motion video, I just need to edit it all together now as I have taken all the pictures I need.

King Kong - 1933

King Kong is one of the first ever films to use stop-motion animation within the film. It does a fantastic job, even though it does not look that good nowadays, I still love sitting down to watch this film. What amazes me is that nowadays the same techniques are used to create stop-motion, that's spanning just under 80 years of stop-motion animation. It was in fact this film that sparked infamous stop-motion artist Ray Harryhausen to start his career. His first feature film was Mighty Joe Young in 1949. This started a career of many stop-motion films ending in 1981 with possibly his most famous film, Clash of the Titans. I admire all stop-motion animators a lot and think the work they do is amazing and should keep going. I have started a stop-motion animation for my final media product, it's not going to be very long though.

Fell in Love With A Girl - The White Stripes - 2007

This is a stop-motion music video for the song 'Fell in Love With A Girl' by American band The White Stripes, it was directed by Michel Gondry. I love this video, I love the simple idea of using Lego bricks to create a stop-motion video. The length of the song is quite short and the beat is quite fast, the video is almost a blur as it's completed leaving the viewer possibly wanting to watch it again to know what happened. The bright colour's of Lego bricks create a sense of happiness to match the lyrics of the song. Other music video's that have used stop-motion techniques very well include Oren Lavie's 'Her Morning Elegance' and the video for Plan B's song No Good. Watching these video's makes me want to produce my own stop-motion for the media product element. I am not quite sure what sort of storyline I will have to it yet, but hopefully I can create something fairly simple.

PIXELS: Retro Gamers - OneMoreProduction - 2010

This is a great little video that I recently found. It is beautifully edited together and I love the way the retro games have been incorporated into it. One of my favourite's is the Space Invaders shooting down at the cars, hitting a taxi that crumbles into pixels and comes to a standstill. My other favourite moment is the Pacman going along the Subway eating up the stations. I love the way they have mixed the technology with the hand-held camera footage, and I think every little detail has been thought of. It makes me think about possibly doing some stop-motion relating to games for my media product, I'm not quite sure yet though.

Sea Shell - Morph - Aardman - 1977 -1980

This is a short stop-motion film starring popular plasticine character Morph and his friend Chas. In it they argue about music and Morph solves the problem using a clever little technique. I like this short, I think it sums up what every Morph film is about, Morph is doing something fun and happy, Chas does something to interrupt the mood of Morph, Morph finds some unique way of solving the problem. In this film Morph puts a black circle on the floor and sweeps Chas' broken stereo into it, this shows an impossibility within the film but provides a clever bit of comedy for the viewer.

Nighthawks - Edward Hopper - 1942

This is a popular painting by American painter Edward Hopper painted in 1942, it depicts people in a diner late at night, people who stay up late are commonly referred to as "Nighthawks", hence the title of the painting. All the characters within the diner look lonely and wondering about their respective lives. Looking closer at the painting the couple appear to have beaks for noses, probably a nod to the painting's title. I like this painting as it's simple and makes me think, it makes me feel a little lonely and wanting to know more about what each of the people represent. Hopper painted this after the attack on Pearl Harbour, so they each probably have some thoughts or feelings towards this attack. The use of straight lines in the painting makes it feel as though the characters are trapped in the diner and are forever confined there because there is no visible door for a way out. This painting is just one example of the early 1940's in America, a different side to the jazz singing, Charleston dancing sort of America popularly depicted in culture.

The Prestige - 2006

This is a screenshot from the 2006 mystery thriller film The Prestige, it was directed by Christopher Nolan. What I like about this screenshot is that if you haven't seen the film then there will be a certain sense of wonder as to what is going on. You have three characters talking, one holding a light bulb which is somehow on. If you haven't seen the film then you won't understand the reasoning behind having the light bulb on. They are standing in what appears to be an industrial type building and all three characters are wearing Victorian style clothing, this will suggest the type of era the film is set in. This shot shows how important mise-en-scène is to any film, it is the little details such as costumes and setting that really give the viewer a much fuller understanding of the film. Mise-en-scène is used very well throughout The Prestige, I like the style of the film very much and think it is one of Christopher Nolan's best films.

Snowy New York - Adam Bacon - 2008

This is a photograph that I took on a trip to New York in February 2008. I think this photo truly encaptures a what everyone sees New York for. It has the yellow taxi's prominently in the foreground of the image, and in the final third of the image from left to right, there is the iconic image of Times Square with two streets going either side of the infamous lights. The steam coming out of the ground and spilling all over the scene just adds a little bit to the atmosphere and composition of the photograph. It's only when you look at the image a little closer you realise that it is snowing. This is probably my favourite photograph that I have ever taken, it came out exactly how I wanted and I was really lucky to have all the taxi's lined up there. The semiotics of the image tell us that the taxi's are the yellow cars, we just know this as soon as we see the image and instantly will relate that and the tower of advertisements as Times Square in New York.

This Mirror Makes You Look Fat - Sam Ashby - 2009

I really like this photo, it was taken by local photographer Sam Ashby. The first thing that stands out is the text, 'THIS MIRROR MAKES YOU LOOK FAT', I then notice that the words are affixed to a mirror in some sort of public toilets. The reason for putting the text on a mirror is that the words reflect the view of a section of modern day society. A lot of glossy magazines are obsessed with thin models and the infamous size 0, a lot of young people will read this and see the people in magazines as some sort of role model, in extreme cases anorexia and even depression can come about from the constant pressure of looking thin. An image like this only reflects our society and shows us the shallowness of a small number of people.

The Potato Massacre - Adam Bacon - 2007

This is a piece of stop-motion animation that I did within a group in 2007. I really enjoyed doing it even though it was a tedious task, and the ending to the story isn't that good. What I like about it is that we spent a lot of time trying to make it look believable, we used cocktail sticks to hold various potatoes in place and to create the effect of them flying through the air. The music was chosen by someone else in the group, but I think it plays well alongside the carnage within the film. This is one of the first pieces of media that I created, and although the quality isn't very good, I am still incredibly proud of it as I believe that it shows an imaginative story full of odd and bizarre characters. Stop-motion is something that has always fascinated me, Wallace and Gromit, the short stories of Morph and the recent film Fantastic Mr. Fox have always fascinated me. I like the way that they are created and the amount of time and care that is put into them. It can be quite a technical form of media, with the amount of photograph's per second very important, it is commonly 24 frames per second. I am considering doing a short piece of stop-motion as my media product.

Let the Right One In - 2008

This is a screenshot from the film Let the Right One In, it's a 2008 Swedish romantic horror film directed by Tomas Alfredson. It's based on the novel of the same name, written by John Ajvide Lindqvist, who also wrote the screenplay for the film. The film tells the story of a bullied 12-year-old boy who develops a friendship with a vampire girl in a suburb of Stockholm. I like the juxtaposition that this shot provides. We are not used to seeing a child covered in blood on their face, and to see it not only provides the viewer with a sense of uneasiness, but also possibly gives a sense of wonder as to why this child is in this situation. I highly recommend this film, it is beautifully shot with a wide airy of techniques used, and the final scene in the swimming pool is just beautiful.

The Faint - The Geeks Were Right (Does It Offend You, Yeah? Remix) Music Video - 2008

This is a music video that myself and three friends created in our final year of 6th form, it received an A grade and the highest mark in the class. We storyboarding the whole thing, although ultimately most of the editorial decisions were made during the editing period. I believe that the narrative element of the music video is very easy to understand, once we had completed a first draft of the video and showed some of our friends they all seemed to understand the story and know what was going on. When the boy walks to the school doors and they open three times, this imediately sets the tone of the video for the audience; it tells them that this is going to be a fast paced music video to match the beat of the song. I believe that the lighting throughout is very good and everything flows well in this video. The video has been compared in style to the White Stripes video ‘The Hardest Button To Button'; especially the opening scenes of the boy walking up the corridor and the stop-motion desk sequence towards the end of the video. In fact the stop-motion desk sequence is my favourite bit of the video, it times well with the music and shows my passion for stop-motion animation. I probably will be doing some form of stop-motion video for my media product.

Telephone Box - Adam Bacon - 2009

This is one of my favourite images that I have ever taken. It is a telephone box in an English village. Applying semiotics to the image tells us that the image probably is in rural England as the bold red telephone box is surrounded by green grass. I like the lighting in the image also, I was standing far enough away for the flash on my camera to create a good effect on the object. I like the darkness in the background, as this was taken at night I think that adds a certain sense of atmosphere to the photograph. If it had been taken during the day I do not think the image would be as good.

Dream Caused by the Flight of a Bee Around a Pomegranate a Second Before Awakening - Salvador Dalí - 1944

This painting is by Spanish painter Salvador Dalí, it has the lengthy title of Dream Caused by the Flight of a Bee Around a Pomegranate a Second Before Awakening and was painted in 1942. What this painting depicts is the dream that a woman is having having just fallen asleep. Below the woman is a small pomegranate that is been pestered by a bee. The dream shows a shotgun pointing directly at the woman this represents the sting of the bee. Then two tigers leaping out of a fishes mouth, the tigers reprsent the colours of the bee, with the scaly body of the fish representing the scaly complex of the bee's eyes. The fish, tigers and shotgun are all leaping out of a much larger pomegranate. Dalí has stated that this was inspired by a dream his wife had, he used the recently discovered theory of Sigmund Freud that dreams are liable to external sightings. I love this painting and how it depicts dream, Salvador Dalí's work is bizarre and unusual and I think that is why it appeals to so many different people.

Fantastic Mr. Fox - 2009

The film Fantastic Mr. Fox is the latest stop-motion film that has been released to cinemas worldwide. It was not produced by the infamous Aardman studios but in fact by Regency Enterprises. It is a very good film and one that doesn't get boring. I sat and watched it fascinated by the way the stop-motion was been produced, knowing in my head the way that the production of the film took place makes me amazed at how long people have taken to make films like this. I like the design of the film as well, it's very traditional and has a rustic feel about it. The character voices were filmed on location with the actors acting out the movements of their characters, the producers did this so that the voices would sound more real, I think it comes across really well in the film. Other popular stop-motion films include Tim Burton's The Nightmare Before Christmas which was released in 1993, and more recently Aardman's Wallace & Gromit in The Curse of the Were-Rabbit in 2005.

Angel of the North - Adam Bacon - 2006

This is a photograph that I took of the Angel of the North in 2006. The first thing I notice about this image is the bold colours and how they separate themselves boldly from one another; from the bright blue in the sky, to the reddish of the angel herself. I think the angle that I have taken this photograph at works very well too, it gives the sense of empowerment to the angel as she is so tall; and because of the iconic status of the angel the superiority that I have tried to portray in the image comes across very well. Again, I can apply the rule of thirds to this image; from left to right the two wings cushion the centre third of the body; but also from top to bottom the head and body border the wing part of the angel.