Today We Are Making….

This is a stop motion animation I have been working on for a project on moving image at university. The theme we were given was on Convergence/Divergence. I chose to look at the convergence of Ingredients.

I have created this animation to encourage children to learn how to cook and to eat healthily. I wanted to create it for a specific, high profile company, such as Waitrose.
The Waitrose product designs in this animation are only being used for academic purposes as I wanted to promote their qualities and ethos through my animation.

I made it using stop motion to give it that hand crafted quality. I didn’t want it to look crisp and  too precise, as cooking with children (and in general) can be a messy affair. I wanted you to feel like you were amursed in the the cooking process, watching the ingredients move in front of you. However Waitrose do strive for quality therefore I made sure  my illustrations were of a quality suitable for waitrose. “keep it simple, fresh and friendly. A mix of traditional and modern, but nothing too fussy.”   I feel that this comment from Heather Gatley (illustrator for Waitrose) sums up my animation nicely.

It was suggested at a tutorial that I should look into using a character  in the animation because it was for children and they would  possibly respond to this. However after some consideration I felt that a character was not needed. Waitrose don’t use  them in their work, they use real people. Therefore I felt that getting my niece to narrate the animation would make a younger audience appreciate it more as it was someone around their age who would be directing them through the process. Maybe If they heard a child their own age reading the instructions they would feel more confident that they could also prepare this recipe.

The narration is by my niece (11), sound effects were created by my Mum and I and all the drawings are hand drawn by myself.

Adding Music

Broken by Freek Van Haagen

I thought that when the scenes faded into each other it made it look very clean and professional. Even though the context of the animation has no reference to my own it was the fact that it was hand drawn that drew me too it at first as my own work shall be illustrated and then animated using stop motion.

The absence of a narration over the top meant that it was the music that had to assist the animation in telling the story. I will be having narration in my animation, however there will be sections with just animation and this is where I shall need music to keep the audience watching and to continue the narrative. I want my chosen music to emphasise certain actions to keep chidren interested.

The piece of music I have chosen to play along side my animation is called “Armellodie” by Chilly Gonzales. I felt that it matched the pace of my animation and my nieces narration well.

I decided to add music to my animation when I was researching into the current Waitrose adverts. I noticed that It wasn’t just Heston or Delia talking the audience through the recipe, there was also music in the background. The music emphasies the chef’s excitement about the dish they are preparing, in turn making it’s viewer intrigued in the dish also. It influences them into wanting to cook the dish themselves.

Animation in segments

Click onto the hyperlinks to watch the different segments of animation I have created so far. I am creating a cooking animation for children to follow for my latest unit on moving image.

I am considering having my nieces narrate the animation. To reinforce the fact that this animation is for children.

Ingredients

• 175g butter, softened
• 175g soft light brown sugar
• Grated zest and juice of 1½ oranges
• 125g sultanas
• 3 eggs, beaten
• 175g self-raising flour
• 1-2 tbsp whole milk
• 100g icing sugar

• Line a baking tin (20cm) with baking parchment.
• In a large bowl, beat together the butter and sugar with an electric hand whisk until pale and fluffy.
• Stir in the grated zest of 1 orange, grated carrot and the sultanas before adding the eggs, a little at a time, beating well after each addition. Sift in the flour and gently fold in, adding enough milk to make the mixture drop off the end of a spoon when tapped.

Final Drawings

Here are my final illustrations that I shall be using in my animation. I will be animating them using stop motion. When I emailed Heather Gately and Emma Dibben (illustrators for Waitrose) they advised me to make my illustrations “simple, fresh and friendly. A mix of traditional and modern, but nothing too fussy.”  ”Waitrose is very much about quality and goodness so getting those qualities across would be important.” I feel I have demonstrated these qualities through my illustrations.

Get Cooking with Penguin

The complementary colouring of these beautiful Penguin book covers have been an inspiration towards my own colouring for my animation.

As a lot of my ingredients have a orange and brown colouring to them I concluded on using a blue background to complement them. I have the perfect blue tiled counter in my kitchen which is a texture I am considering on using for my background.

After a crit with my tutors we decided that a bright tiled background could be too distracting from my drawings. Therefore I have decided to make the colour of the tiles paler to amend this problem.

                  

Pick Me Up

I recently visited the Pick Me Up exhibition at Somerset House in London with some fellow Illustrators.  Pick Me Up, ‘the UK’s first contemporary graphic art fair’, showed a range of styles from the graphic art and design community. The atmosphere was amazing. There was artwork everywhere, work being produced while we were there, each room had a different collective in it who you could talk to and there were workshops for the public to get involved with. We joined in on a zine making workshop and combed our work to create a zine.

These Photo’s were taken by Vicky Yates.

You can see more photos of the event here.

Some of my favorite artists exhibiting were Victo Ngai, Tom Gauld, Paul Blow and Annelie Carlstörm.

First Animation Tester

I have just completed my first tester animation using stop motion animation. It’s only 4 seconds but it feels good to watch my drawings move across the screen. The background is just a photograph of my kitchen counter. I felt this colouring and pattern would be perfect as it will complement the oranges and browns of the ingredients. I was considering illustrating the background in colour pencils like the other illustrations but after creating this short tester I rather like the photography element.

I have posted the full 4 seconds of video on youtube

Drawing for an animation

After I photographed every step of the carrot and orange cake recipe I now have the task of illustrating each part ready to animate.

As I am using Waitrose as my hypothetical supermarket client I have tried to only use Waitrose’s own brand and John Lewis home ware.

I emailed two of Waitrose’s Illustrators, Heather Gatley and Emma Dibben, for advise on what qualities Waitrose wanted to advertise and they replied “keep it simple, fresh, friendly. A mix of traditional and modern, but nothing too fussy.” and “I think Waitrose is very much about quality and goodness.”

I believe I have achieved this balance and that these qualities will show through my animation when it is complete.

When should children learn how to cook?

Cooking has risen in popularity in recent years because of the conformity into whole foods, organic foods, specialized diets, and through the eruption of cooking programs such as Nigella’s Kitchen or Jamie at Home promoting cooking at home.

Children often love to watch Mum or Dad cook, it is also a great way for parents to bond with their children.

A child should learn to cook, at least beginning basics, when he or she is old enough to express an interest. Even a three-year-old can learn to cook in some ways. Using the cookie cutter to make shaped cookies can be the first step into encouraging your child to have an interest in cooking. By encouraging a child to line the baking tray with paper cases or letting them add the toppings onto a cupcake can make a child feel he or she is helping. These little tasks can improve a child’s fine motor skills and organized thinking through these tasks.

So when should a child learn to cook? ”All those kinds of things they enjoy so much in the sandbox can also be done in the kitchen with flour, whatever’s being prepared,” says Lori Nagel, the director of curriculum development for Young Chefs Academy

“Teaching kids to learn to cook will introduce them to new flavors and think healthy from a young age.” Sara Bonisteel- Kitchen Daily

Encouraging children to learn how to cook at a young age will help them when they are older to cook a wider range of meals, resulting in a higher nutritional intake. It can also boost your confidence to be able to cook for yourself. When a child says that they have cooked a meal it can give them a sense of accomplishment and pride.

My animation has been aimed at children between the age of 7-11. I felt this was an average age for children to portray a wish to learn how to cook. During the recipe there are some steps that younger children may need adult supervision such as peeling and grating the carrot and placing the cake in and taking it out of the oven. Depending on the child’s age or knowledge of cooking they may not need this supervision or assistance.  To make sure the recipe I had chosen to animate was easy enough to follow I asked my nieces, aged 11, to go through it. They found it very simple to follow and easy to accomplish by themselves.

Cooking with my Nieces

Today I went through the orange and carrot cake recipe with my nieces, aged 11. This helped me first hand with my research into whether children their age would find the recipe easy enough to follow and how much adult supervision and assistance they would need.

• They needed no help with peeling the carrot or peeling it and the oranges.
• When they cracked the eggs they both made sure that there were no pieces of shell in the bowl.
• They found mixing the ingredients very easy, and they did a very thorough job.
• They made sure the oven was the right temperature but I got the cake out of the oven.
• However when it came to the icing I’m sure more went into their mouths than on the cake.

At the end the girls said they found the recipe very easy to follow and that they enjoyed the cooking process, Which made them enjoy the eating process more.