I wasn’t sure how making the boy walk when we can’t see his legs was going to go, but I’m really pleased with the outcome. With the limited experience I have of animating walk cycles, I would usually start with the legs and work up from there, but this time I had to focus on the up-and-down movement of his body, the head and the swing of his arm. For the head, instead of trying to guess how it would move up and down, I focused on keeping his eye line on the horse, which made the movement happened by itself. Altogether I think it was quite successful, and both the tutors I showed it to said he had weight to him which is just what you want, and not always easy to achieve. I also had fun playing around with holding the frames to get the timing of the blinks right, so there is slightly different lengths of tiny pauses between him stopping in front of the horse and the first blink, between the first and second blink, and between the second blink and his arm starting to move towards the horse.

I’m annoyed that everything else moved a little bit during the blinking though, particularly the head. I didn’t stick it down because it had just been moving, and the process of sticking it down would have almost definitely changed its position from the previous frame. I feel like this is I am going to keep on facing!

The second shot with the hand was made with a separate puppet of just the boy’s arm. It was important that it looked like a continuation of the previous shot, as if I had just zoomed in while moving his arm, and I think I achieved that pretty well. I think it helps that you don’t see his hand in the previous shot.

We animated several seconds even though we know we won’t need that much. This means for the two shots that include the carousel moving – when he looks through the camera and when he arrives in the colourful world, we can choice of which seconds of footage to use.

We’re now at the stage of developing the story and visualising various elements.

This is a quick sketch of my initial thoughts for the stop motion section, involving paper cut outs on a multiplane. By having the character and the background elements on separate layers, it’ll be easier to animate the parts that move (e.g. the character, the funfair rides) without moving the parts that don’t (e.g. the sky, the ground).

If the stop motion part is made with paper cut outs, I really like the idea of leaning into that miniature, material world by using a variety of different materials and textures, such as buttons, ribbons etc. It would make an even starker contrast to the black and white world of the 2D section, and create a cuteness that goes against the sinister nature of the funfair itself.

We also have an animatic, made my Jocasta, for the beginning of our story:

This is the new version of the story, after discussing together and with tutors:

1. There is an old abandoned funfair, during day time. The rides are rusty and damaged, the stall are empty, there’s an old teddy on the ground. Everything is in black and white
2. A man walks in
3. He sees an old fashioned camera on the ground and picks it up
4. He holds up the camera to his eye
5. From his point of view, we see the funfair at night, in colour. There is still no people but the ferris wheel is lit up and turning, and there is music. 
6. He lowers the camera. In his world, the ferris wheel is still and silent
7. He holds the camera to his eye again
8. From his point of view, we see the carousel lit up and spinning (with no one riding it), and hear the music again.
9. He lowers the camera. The carousel is still and silent
10. He holds the camera to his eye again and presses the button to take a picture
11. Colourful paint bursts out of the viewfinder (where his eye is).
12. He moves the camera away from his face in shock. The colourful paints covers his whole body
13. Now in the colourful stop motion world, there is a close up of his eyes opening, while the paint falls down off his face. There is the music playing quietly in the background
14. From his point of view, we see the funfair alive in colour, and hear the music playing louder
15. With the camera in his hand, the man walks past the ferris moving wheel to a stall that has several huge candy flosses
16. He picks one up
17. He eats the candy floss as he walks towards the carousel
18. The carousel slows down and stops
19. He is now riding the carousel while it spins again
20. Next he is is riding the ferris wheel
21. From his point of view, we see a hook-a-duck game
22. He lifts the camera to his eye
23. From his point of view through the camera, we see the hook-a-duck stall empty, with no water or ducks or prizes, in the black and white world
24. He puts the camera on the ground so that he can pick up a stick to play the game
25. On the ground, the camera disappears
    1. we can discuss how it disappears
26. There is a wide shot of the funfair surrounded by darkness. It is bright against the darkness and there is nothing else around it. The music gets gradually louder
    1. this is to create a spooky feeling, to suggest that he is stuck there forever and there is nowhere else to go
27. Cut to credits

The main issue we have at the moment is how to end our animation. We want to make it clear that there is something sinister about the colourful version of the fun fair, and having a piece of it drift back into the black and white world isn’t quite dramatic enough. We think he should get trapped there in some way, so I added this idea of the camera disappearing, taking away his opportunity of returning home. But is that spooky enough, and is is clear enough? How can we show that this is somehow an intention of the funfair?