Week 2 – Pixillation

Posted on 6th Feb, 2018 by jeremyroutledge

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I tried to get people a bit excited about pixillation – using people and objects as the things to be animated – and I busted out the laptop to show some good examples. Shiny, a film made with clothes and Fresh Guacamole by animation legend PES among others.

While examples elicited a good response it didn’t really fly. It could be partially because the space is rather limited in the room but there is always a bit of a barrier when trying to get people up and moving around, especially if at least one of those people is to be on camera!

Again Jess did some fantastically paced plasticine stop motion and really took on board any advice she was given.

I did break out the lego for this session in conjunction with Michel Gondry’s video for the White Stripes’ Fell In Love With A Girl as an example of a way it can be used. It didn’t get used that way. Tom did some really excellent walks with a minifigre though. Several in fact. Each time improving on the last. I think he could do some really exciting stuff if he’d step outside his comfort zone. Though given the time animation takes it’d need to be more of a stroll than a step… The rest of the lego was used to great effect by other people in conjunction with plasticine.

Week 1 – Back in the NAS Lynx!

Posted on 6th Feb, 2018 by jeremyroutledge

This was the first workshop of six that we are running at the NAS Lynx Centre in Weston Super Mare as part of the Exploring Diagnosis project.

Last time we were here we had workshops for larger groups of people, perhaps 20 at once, and we set up simultaneous activities like a green screen, iPads and modelling clay for animation.

This time, Dom (workshop leader) and Lena (the centre manager) discussed smaller groups for people who expressed an interest in animation.

Dom writes

“As in previous workshops we had a box of plasticine (modelling clay) and a pair of iPads with an animation app installed. Everyone enjoys making things with plasticine and a couple of people really took well to animating.

Often I find with people new to animating that there aren’t enough frames in the animation. It all goes by too quickly. The animators don’t usually mind this as they can see the elements they expected on screen but for anyone else it is difficult to see what is meant. This is one of the reasons I was particularly impressed with the Pokemon animation which rolls on to the screen, gets poked and then fills the screen with a cloud of black ink. The pacing is very good. Jess asked for advice and then used it.

People are often reluctant to re-do a thing that isn’t right the first time because “it took ages”, though the “ages” in question are usually between 5 and 10 minutes. I’m hoping to get to the point where the animators are happy to look at what they’ve done and if it isn’t quite how they hoped perhaps make it again, taking into account what they’ve learnt.

Workshops at the NAS Lynx Centre in Weston Super Mare

Posted on 22nd Jan, 2018 by

Yesterday we started our series of six new film/animation workshops at the NAS Lynx Centre in Weston Super Mare. These will run until 28th February with a break on the

14th February. Our lead animator Dom from ‘Calling the Shots’ is working with a fantastic young animator called Lila and 6-8 interested centre users, ranging in ages from mid 20s to 40s. It’s a drop in structure with a different focus each week and Dom/Lila will collate pictures, short animations and blog reports for the project website from next week.

Yesterday we also started conversations with artists who will be contributing to the visual tracks of the three films we have planned to make about our research themes: ‘diagnosis’, ‘neurodiversity’, and ‘treatment’. Our rough interview plan is:

1.To describe the project

2. How do you like to work?

where do you work?
what’s your working pattern like?

3. What are you hoping to learn from the project?

skills?
techniques?
what support do you think you might need?

By the end of the week we will have talked to

Angela Weddle

https://thetranscendentartofaweddle.weebly.com/

JA Tan

http://artofjatan.com/

James Frye

http://www.jamesfryeartist.com/

Mahlia Amatina

www.mahliaamatina.com

The next steps are for us to develop a work package for each of these artists, software, hardware etc as well as techniques they’d like to learn. We will then begin to schedule a visit to each during April. Dom will travel first to Texas and then to Washington and finally Vancouver to spend time with each artist. He will separately plan visits to Mahlia, who is UK based. Dom will teach them and set them up with a production base. He will fit round their working patterns and spend a minimum of 2-3 sessions with them. He will then provide support via email and Skype and we will set up a Dropbox folder for their work in progress.

Our plan is for Dom to re-visit in September/October, to provide one-to-one support and training for each artist as their film work develops.

EU-AIMS scientists answer questions from the autism community about EU-AIMS research

Posted on 11th Dec, 2017 by jeremyroutledge

Ginny Russell recently led on a film about the autism community’s questions for a biomedical consortium that is developing drugs to treat autism called EU-AIMS.

Two public events organised by members of the EU-AIMS Ethics advisory board (led by Ilina Singh, University of Oxford) one in the UK and one in Denmark were conducted as part of the consortium’s on-going PPI activities in 2014 and 2015.

Sixty-six individuals submitted written comments on the consortium’s research after these events, most were questions that autistic adults or parents of individuals with autism had raised. We summarised their questions in this video and put them to the scientists at the EU-AIMS 6th annual Meeting in 2017.

An associated paper is available here http://blogs.exeter.ac.uk/exploringdiagnosis/files/2017/11/hex.pdf

Film Workshops Review

Posted on 7th Mar, 2017 by fawnmead

Last year we ran a series of workshops for autistic adults at venues across the South West and South Wales. The idea was to experiment with different visual techniques like stop motion and cut-out animation, green-screen technology and motion sensor software to allow the participants to come up with their own creative work. Here’s a short selection of clips:

Participants loved it – animation opened up new ways of expression and staff were amazed to see certain individuals engaging with such enthusiasm. We left animation kit at each venue and this is in high demand everywhere!

ReacTickles Web Apps

Posted on 30th Jan, 2017 by Christopher Michael Elphick

Following the excitement about ReacTickles at the St. Mark’s House workshop, [http://blogs.exeter.ac.uk/exploringdiagnosis/st-marks-house-workshop/] Exploring Diagnosis have been working with the Cariad Interactive design team, Wendy Keay-Bright and Joel Gethin Lewis, [http://cariadinteractive.com/about/] to re-create some of the most popular ReacTickles for the web. This means that there is no need to purchase or download any software, you can just click on the images and start playing, using your mouse, keyboard, iPhone or iPad.

Based on the feedback from St Marks’ and some of the demos we posted earlier [http://blogs.exeter.ac.uk/exploringdiagnosis/reacticklesdemo/] Joel has been busy programming many new ReacTickles, and we have chosen three examples for Exploring Diagnosis. These are,

Bouncing Circles – use your keyboard to explore speed, position and pressure

Keyboard Worm – use your keyboard to explore velocity

Springy Circles – use your mouse to explore elasticity

Each of the ReacTickles, will trace your interaction, creating real-time animations while you explore. Using the Quicktime > New Screen Recording Option, [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=84nuErTMv2w] you can easily record and save your animation.

Wendy and Joel are working on more ReacTickles for web. We will be posting more about these in the future, and you can follow their progress on the Cariad Interactive website [http://cariadinteractive.com/2017/01/17/original-reactickles-revisited/].

iPad gift to Stallcombe House

Posted on 5th Dec, 2016 by Christopher Michael Elphick

This picture was taken on a recent visit to Stallcombe House, where EXDX team member Dr. Chris Elphick gave the residents their very own iPad to use. He is pictured shaking hands with Chris Thistle, the general manager of Stallcombe. Having this iPad will enable the residents to continue to make the stop-motion videos, as seen on the ‘Film Workshops’ section of this website. In addition to this, residents will be able to explore the use of the Somantics and ReacTickles apps we have also started to use in our more recent workshops. Dr. Elphick is looking forward to attending the Stallcombe Christmas party on Sunday the 11th of December.

The Team from St Mark’s House workshop

Posted on 29th Nov, 2016 by fawnmead

The workshopteam introducing the residents to model making and stop motion

St Mark’s House workshop

Posted on 29th Nov, 2016 by fawnmead

St Mark’s House in Newport, Gwent was the next destination for our workshops, this time with the National Autistic Society group who meet there regularly. We had the regular plasticine table that proved as popular as ever with carers and clients alike. It’s really nice and social just to roll dough and chat. Before long, hey presto, you have something you can animate on the Ipad using the I Stop Motion software.

Notice we’ve clamped the Ipads to the tables using a piece of wood and g–clamps, this saves damaging the table and keeps them still and free of jolting and jogging.

We also had roving two Ipads that clients could take anywhere in the building and interact using the ReacTickles Magic and Somantics Software from Cardiff School of Art and Design and Cariad Interative. This amazing program allows the user to touch, gesture and use sound to create movement and reaction on the screen. We monitored the use from two laptops and recorded some of the sessions.

For a bigger more dynamic experience we used another Cardiff School of Art and Design and Cariad Interactive program, Somantics, and a projector, screen and Xbox 360 Kinect camera to capture physical movement. The set up was a real attraction, causing traffic jams as centre users passed by.

A big thank you to animators and facilitators Dominic Pitt, Sophie Marsh and Lizzie Watts for their excellent support throughout the workshop series.

Animation for people with (and without) autism.

Posted on 19th Oct, 2016 by Christopher Michael Elphick

This video is made using a program called ReacTickles, designed to encourage children to explore computers and interactive whiteboards in a relaxing, experimental manner. The most recent version of this programme is called ReacTickles Magic – which can be used as an iPad app or a computer program. Using a variety on inputs – such as pressing the iPad screen, using the computer mouse or keyboard, gesture and audio input – like clapping or making any sound chosen by the user, it is possible to produce the striking images in this demo video. The intention is to allow users to playfully discover the possibilities of an interactive system with no previous knowledge or experience of the technology. We plan on exploring the use of ReacTickles Magic in our next workshop.

Thanks to Wendy Keay-Bright for letting us demonstrate this software.