When I was first handed this project I did a lot of research into various methods and animators both contemporary and historical.

        

Animators such as John and James Whitney and Len Lye

As well as these animators Javan Ivey and Angela Kohler and Ithyle Griffiths      

I found these works very inspiring for this project alongside all of the different techniques i found that i could try out, such as cut out, chalk, scratching or drawing directly onto film, pixelation, paint on glass, flipbook and sand animation. 

I decided to begin experimenting with masking tape using it at different lengths to create movement, I thought that it would be good to use as i could make different patterns and shapes with the tape as well as drawing on the tape to make smaller pieces of animation within the original, using different camera angles and close up, I think that this could have worked well and been an interesting piece of work however the planning and time we had limited this idea and wouldn't have worked as well, the tape loses its stickiness after a while so I would have been difficult to shoot with having to keep replacing the tape, particularly if it had images already drawn on.

I moved onto the idea of using fairy lights, I thought that it would be a good idea to use plain and coloured lights in the dark and move them gradually as well as turning them on and off at different intervals to fit in with the music.When I tried this out the light were quite difficult to keep up with the blu tac and if I hung them with tape the lights would reveal it and it didn't look very good. Another issue I had, they were difficult to move without them dropping or losing shape so I quickly gave up on this idea.

I then tried out a type of cut out animation, where I cut out holes in paper to create a sequence of patterns and shapes that fit the music I had chosen. I would then shine a light behind the images so it would show through the holes I had cut out. I spent some time getting the timing and shapes planed out so that it fit together, and then proceeded to start cutting the holes into the paper. I made about 2 seconds worth of images and began filming, having to replace each page and take a still image and repeat, The idea worked really well apart from the cutting out and the time it took to film would have taken a very long time and I wouldn't have been able to finish the entire thing.

I finally looked into chalk animation, my first two tests were quite short as I found it difficult to draw on the small board with the chunky pastels that I had, but I bought different pastels that were much easier to draw with, it was a challenge to animate with the chalk board but as I got used to the technique it I learned that could draw the next image on before I rubbed the previous one out or even be careful how I erased the image and it would leave a shadow behind which was an effect I quite liked. 

Here are my test animations and my final outcome.