the inspiration...

I've seen Seussical the Musical twice and it's fantastic...so imaginative (typical Seuss) but also dealing with real issues that kids and adults face every day. So if you haven't seen it and you have the chance to, you should. The songs are fabulous as well and will ultimately be the way Gertrude's story is told. She would probably be considered a minor character but she's certainly not a static one. I believe her story can be told with five songs. They are:

• The One Feather Tail of Miss Gertrude McFuzz
• Amayzing Mayzie
• Amayzing Gertrude
• Notice Me, Horton
• All For You

Basically, Gertrude is a bird who loves Horton the Elephant and she thinks the reason he doesn't notice her is because of her one feather tail...so Mayzie, a high maintenance bird comes along and tells her about a doctor who can give her pills to make her tail grow...and Gertrude sees the doctor and he tells her that her tail is just right for her kind of bird (my favorite line in the whole musical)...but she throws a fit, the doctor gives in, and her tail grows so much that she can't even fly...at this point Horton needs help but Gertrude can't fly to help him...eventually she realizes she's made a mistake and gets her tail plucked out...then she is able to help Horton, he finally notices her, and it's happily ever after...

So, Gertrude's story deals with body image issues, peer pressure, body modification, and ultimately just being yourself...all within a very cute context.

how this will go...

So these are the tasks that will have to be completed over the course of this project:

1. Initial Research- Reading books about stop-motion animation, watching full-length movies which utilize stop-motion animation, watching short stop-motion movies on YouTube...basically soaking up any useful knowledge I can about stop-motion animation!
   
2. Idea Organization- Brainstorming for how the story should unfold, which songs to use, which characters to use, and in what settings.
   
3. Set Construction- Building sets from scratch that will accommodate the process and give the desired visual effect...also costing as little money as possible.
4. Character Development- Creating all of the characters needed to tell the story as I wish to tell it. This includes sketching and creating the 3-D puppets/models themselves.
5. Finalizing the Storyboard- Putting all ideas down on paper so that the filming goes as smoothly as possible.
6. Animation Timing- Break down all audio frame by frame using Magpie Pro lipsync software...this step should prevent me from having to redo shots for not lining up with the music.
7. Filming- 15 frames/sec for about 12 minutes = about 11,000 frames! That will be a lot of pictures!

By the end of this semester I will have completed steps 1-5. I will include critical reviews of the books I have read, photo and video progress of the set construction and character development, and scanned copies of the finished storyboard.

I hope to get all of the animation timing work completed over winter break (Magpie Pro will be a Christmas present...unfortunately the 30-day free trial isn't going to be enough time!). And then, filming can begin promptly at the beginning of spring semester.

Hi!

Hello and welcome! So, I had this idea over the summer to create a short stop-motion animation movie telling the story of Gertrude McFuzz, one of my favorite characters from Seussical the Musical. If you're not familiar with Seussical the Musical don't worry, you'll get to know Gertrude well.

For a bit of background info, I became fascinated with the animation process last year when I did a short dry-erase board animation for a video class. As an Art Studio major, I'm required to pick a focus and I've decided that New Media is my best option (because it's fun and cool and perhaps most relevant to the modern world). Now some might argue that 3-D stop-motion animation is not the most modern animation technique (it isn't) but I would argue that it gives the most comprehensive understanding of animation as a whole. And that's what I'm after, depth of understanding (which is why I'm also a Materials Science and Engineering major where I get to learn about why materials behave as they do from a fundamental level...it's really cool too but it means that I'm extra busy...aren't we all though?)

Stop-motion animation is a tedious and time-consuming process but I hope to have completed this project by May of 2010 (when I am set to graduate from the University of Kentucky). This blog will follow my progress as I really get to know stop-motion animation.